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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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http://www.archive.org/details/educationschool01thri 



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EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. 



EDUCATION AND SCHOOL 



THE REV. EDWARD THRING, M.A. 

HEAD MASTER OF UPPINGHAM SCHOOL, 
LATE FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 




ODamim'&ge antr IJfontfon. 
MACMILLAN AND CO. 

1864. 



LB 1 015 



Camiiritfgt: 

PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. 
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 



TO 

THE REV. DRUMMOND RAWNSLEY, 

THE FIRST PERSONAL FRIEND WHO 
TRUSTED HIM IN HIS PROFESSIONAL LIFE, 

THESE EESULTS OF WOKK 

APvE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR 



& 



PEEFACE. 



This little volume was completed before the 
valuable and interesting Report of the Pub- 
lic School Commissioners appeared. Nothing 
however has been added or altered in conse- 
quence, on account of the entirely distinct 
character and aim of this work. The Report 
is an authoritative judgment on evidence; 
this is nothing more than a bit of evidence 
itself. The Report is a judgment delivered 
on schools as they are ; this to a great extent 
deals with the theory of schools as they 
should be. The Report makes a statement 
of the success or failure of present results; 
this is an attempt to explain processes, and 



viii P HE FACE. 

to give an idea of how results are to be 
attained, and in what manner a school-sys- 
tem should be worked before it is 'condemned. 
In the last thirty or forty years something 
of the same kind has come to pass in schools 
that has been going on in the great manu- 
facturing districts. There has been a sudden 
growth, a great increase in numbers, an 
entire alteration in the way of working, a 
different sort of life set on foot, without 
any corresponding change in the old means 
adapted to a lower and less complicated 
state of things. The Parish boundaries, for 
instance, and the Parish church remain the 
same, whilst every thing else is changed. But 
it would be more true in such cases to say 
that the Parochial system has never been 
tried, than that it has failed. Fresh powers 
are wanted to deal with fresh life. So it is 
with schools. And though it may seem use- 
less to add one more cry to the tumult of 
voices, yet it is hard to stand by in silence, 



PREFACE. ix 

and see our beliefs perishing without fair 
trial. A message plainly delivered by com- 
mon lips in time of war may save an Empire, 
if it is indeed a message. This little volume 
would fain try to deliver a message gathered 
from daily work. If the work is true, and 
the message, it may perhaps at some time 
or other do its mission. If it is not true, let 
it go. Or, if there is to be a breaking up 
of old things, still in time to come it may 
be good that our sons should know that some 
of those who strove and lived before them 
found meaning which satisfied their hearts, 
and a reward in that their life, and would 
not willingly let the things they prized pass 
away into a dishonoured grave. In such a 
feeling I have endeavoured carefully to avoid 
all personality and anecdote, to put out sim- 
ple belief, and the principles on which the 
belief is grounded, that it may be judged 
on its own merits in no party spirit, and 
whether rejected or accepted be fairly tried; 



x PREFACE. 

so that if true and to live, it may as little as 
possible give pain to any working man; if 
true and to pass away, whether what comes 
be better or worse, there may still remain 
no base epitaph of an old belief. 



The School-House, Uppingham, 
April, 1864. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Education, a mastery over time. Rank and Class depend on it. 
Knowledge, its power. The Intellect instrumental. True 
Life i 

CHAPTER II. 

Some Delusions concerning Education . . . . .20 

CHAPTER III. 

School Training. Truth, how to he produced. The Conditions 

of Healthy Life 21 

CHAPTER IY. 
Training or Cram 32 

CHAPTER V. 
The Classics 4 2 

CHAPTER VI. 

Extra Subjects, how to be dealt with . . • . . 91 

CHAPTER VII. 

A great School requires a permanent Staff of Masters . .107 



xii CONTEXTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A great School will not have too few Masters . . . .120 

CHAPTER IX. 

A great School will not be a Barracks, or deal in a niggardly 

way 133 

CHAPTER X. 
A great School will not be a Prison 144 

CHAPTER XI. 

A great School very costly. How moderate Foundations can 

be made effectual ........ 153 

CHAPTER XII. 

What Houses are needed in a great School . . . .169 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Whether the House Master shall be a Private Tutor, or not . 181 

CHAPTER XIV. 

School Teaching: its main Character. The Theory of Exa- 
minations . . 191 

CHAPTER XV. 
Punishments 213 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Internal Self-government. Praepostors. Eagging. Bullying . 237 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Homes .251 



EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. 



CHAPTER I. 

TLXeov y'lfxiav iravrbs. 

If half more than the whole be reckoned, 

Make sure the first half, and then seize the second. 

Education is the gaoler of time. Many boast of 
killino; Time, but few catch him. Running after 
him is no good; he must be met, and seized by 
both his ears (which the Fables have forgotten to 
cut off), and when they are well . twisted, he will 
tell some valuable secrets. He may just as well 
not be caught at all, as allowed to keep his secrets. 
But Education puts a hook in Time's ear, and makes 
him do his bidding. And whether men make Time 
do their bidding, or follow where he drags them, 
is no slight difference. It is the difference between 
going up hill, or tumbling down hill. The progress 
of the world turns on a certain mastery over time, 

1 



2 EDUCATION [Chap. 

and all the main distinctions of man from man, 
and class from class, depend on it. For, in a free 
country, all classes are working classes, and the 
superiority of one class to another in the long run 
depends on the value of their work ; and the value 
of the work depends on the capital, intellectual or 
other, required before the work can be done ; and 
both intellectual skill and money, in the ordinary 
course of events, are the result of a mastery over 
time. Each generation hands over much of its 
acquired capital to the next. 

But money differs from intellectual stores in this 
important particular, that it can be passed on at 
once to a new possessor, whereas each man must for 
himself gain possession of the intellectual capital of 
past generations. The intellectual rank and the skill 
required for high class intellectual work must be 
conquered afresh by every man and every class daily. 
And time is required for this, so there is a constant 
demand for time. Thus, the main laws of society 
are simple, and. excepting where men approach more 
nearly to the condition of savages, rank is founded 
on unalterable distinctions. For though fortunate 
and gifted men in a free country can rise rapidly 



I.] AND SCHOOL. 3 

from class to class, the classes of themselves admit of 
no change, excepting greater graduation. Wherever 
there is valuable labour and intellectual power, 
wherever man rises above the savage state, and 
becomes higher and nobler in his work and ob- 
jects, the value of the work done, and the time 
and capital expended in doing it, will determine 
the rank and class of the workers. 
/ Rank and class in a well-ordered community are 
but other names for a mastery over time, and a wise 
use of it. This does not depend on opinion, it is a 
law of nature, and however men rebel against the 
idea, and endeavour to make numbers their standard, 
their efforts will be vain. As far as they are suc- 
cessful, they drop down the scale of powers to the 
savage's principle of brute force a little disguised, and 
even then, in an artificial state of society, have at 
once to repudiate their principle, and choose indi- 
viduals by a different test to carry out their will and 
govern in their name. As long as time is required to 
learn high-class work, as lono^ as some kinds of work 
are better than others, there can be no change in the 
main class distinctions. Unless some great reformer 
of creation will relieve mankind from the necessity, 

1—2 



4 EDUCATIOX [Chap. 

Ccach generation in turn, of getting a living from the 
earth for itself, this law will remain in force; a ne- 
cessity which decides at once and for ever that the 
great majority can have no mastery over time, as 
they have to begin to labour early in order to live, 
and to continue doing so. Until this law of labour- 
ing in order to live is reversed, time, the great 
arbiter of wealth and power, is the master and 
not the servant of men, and will continue to dis- 
pense his favours- only to those who are independent 
of him, and can treat him as they please. 

Let it be assumed that on an average this law 
of labour comes into force at ten years of age for the 
majority. At ten years of age, then, the majority of 
mankind have to leave off preparation for life, and 
begin to work for life, whereas the time of prepara- 
tion for the higher kinds of labour does not close 
till the learner is twenty, or even thirty years of age. 
On this mastery over time depends the progress made 
by each man, each class, each nation. The classes 
are sometimes agitated by an idle fear, that those 
beneath them will oust them from their rank by 
rising in intelligence. The fear is absurd ; no rise 
in intelligence can take place in a lower class with- 



I.] AND SCHOOL. 5 

out a correspondingly greater rise in the higher 
class, if it chooses. Individuals may rise and fall 
by special excellence or defects, hut the classes 
cannot change places as long as valuable work re- 
quires time to learn how to do it, and the time is 
not to be got. It is not possible, for instance, that 
a class which is compelled to leave off training at 
ten years of age can oust, by superior intelligence, 
a class that is able to spend four years more in 
acquiring skill. Neither can they oust those who 
can give another four years. It is a race. A must 
be very speedy, or B wonderfully rotund, if A can 
run ten miles whilst B runs five. The years of 
preparation are so much start, which cannot be 
lost without the most culpable negligence. The 
race is endless, and the great majority are tied by 
the leg, from the necessity of getting food and 
clothing, whilst those who are unimpeded pass on, 
and the goal still recedes from the most earnest 
striving into an eternity of successful progress, and 
uncompleted .power. Those mighty ten years of 
training, or five years, or three years, will still keep 
the first-class, first ; the second, second ; and so on. 
Unless any class chooses to throw away its start, and 



6 EDUCATION [Chap. 

by gross self-indulgence, or by sacrificing the future 
to present income, to put itself on a level with those 
who cannot, however much they may wish it, have 
the same mastery over time. It is not even a wait- 
ing race, where endurance might make up for want 
of speed. Men die, and with them die the special 
qualities each possessed; whatever he has gained 
is merged in the common treasury, and each gene- 
ration starts again with the same general advan- 
tages over its predecessors that they had over theirs. 
The progress of life consists in a perpetual hand- 
ing over to successors of the results of labour, with 
the perpetual necessity imposed on those successors 
of learning how to work and carry on these gains still 
further, unless they wish to lose them altogether. 
So the same conditions are always to be renewed, 
only that, whilst those who have no mastery over 
time remain comparatively stationary, the hoard of 
collected power becomes greater and greater for the 
children of those who have mastery over time, the 
interval is widened between them and those behind 
them, and the start gained by each generation is 
greater ; because, in proportion as the common stock 
of knowledge increases, more and more time is re- 



I.] AND SCHOOL. 7 

quired by each generation in turn to learn how to 
make it their own. And every stage of successful 
progress is calculated to make any competition with 
the wise masters of time more hopeless. 

But if knowledge has this power, and gives this 
advantage to its possessors, not only would the same 
classes in a nation maintain their places, but the 
same nation, which originally got the start of other 
nations, would still keep it and be first, and the 
relative position of mankind would be unchanged 
and unchangeable. We should not only have the 
same class-gradations that there were in ancient 
Egypt, or Assyria, or in any nation of the civilized 
early world, but those very nations would still be 
at the head of civilization, and leaders of the world 
as of old. For as each generation starts where its 
predecessor left off, each with its mighty ten years 
of hoarded time in advance with which to ransack 
the treasury of the past, these sets of ten years 
constantly added together, with the constant increase 
of the stores of knowledge and power collected un- 
ceasingly by all trained workers, would soon place 
any nation quite out of reach of any other nation 
that had been unable to cultivate knowledge in 



8 EDUCATION [Chap. 

the same way, and an empire in this way a thousand 
years perhaps in advance of any other, could not 
possibly be overtaken by any after effort. Thus, 
the nations of the world would, by degrees, be 
classified according to the value of their work, just 
as the individuals in a nation fall into classes ac- 
cording to the value of their work ; and the great 
ruling nation at the head would at last have sub- 
ordinate to it all other nations in a regular and 
unchangeable gradation, each occupied as they went 
on in a lower branch of work and knowledge, until 
a perpetual niggerdom would be the doom of the 
last to start ; who would have to find food and cloth- 
ing for the rest, whilst the ruling class would devote 
all their lives to science, philosophy, and govern- 
ment. This is a perfectly logical deduction, and 
would certainly be true in practice, if knowledge 
was indeed all ; and if an advance in science, intel- 
lectual activity, and skill was anything more than 
an instrument, a means to an end, and a power. 

If intellectual progress made men perfect, and 
was the true advancement of mankind, making men 
better as well as more powerful, we should still find 
Egypt, let us say, the first of the nations, by virtue 



I] AND SCHOOL. 9 

of that law of nature which makes a good start 
all important, and gives the lead to those who first 
gain a mastery over time. If men really advanced 
as knowledge advanced, because knowledge ad- 
vanced, the first civilized nation would continue 
to be the first civilized nation still. For it is ab- 
surd to speak of a perpetual growth towards perfect 
life from age to age of intellectual progress as the 
destiny of the world, and to state that the nation, 
in which this principle of perfect life was strongest, 
died in consequence. But this is the fact as far 
as regards power gained by knowledge. Assyria, 
Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, and multitudes of 
minor potentates, worked, were civilized, gathered 
in knowledge, and, with knowledge, power ; then 
power brought temptation, and the opportunity of 
gratifying lust, and even whilst they triumphed they 
fell. Each in turn rising like giants in bodily and 
intellectual strength, falling like drunken giants, as 
each drunkard blindly struck out in riotous inso- 
lence, wounding alike friend and foe, and insulting 
all. History hitherto is only the record of the 
drunken sons of knowledge pulling down on their 
own heads the palace they have raised. 



io EDL'CATIOX [Chap. 

There is another element of progress to be taken 
into consideration, the guiding principle, whatever 
that may be, that sets in motion every instrumental 
power, whether of money, bodily strength, or intel- 
lectual strength, and is alone truly man. For, surely, 
we do not consider man to be the body, though man 
cannot be separated in thought from the body, and 
would cease to be man without it. Nevertheless, 
the body is not man. We do not love or hate a 
person simply for bodily qualities, because of bodily 
strength or bodily weakness. But in a perfect being 
every quality or feeling is finally merged in love, 
and as far as man is perfect, all excellence tends 
finally to excite love, his being having been formed 
to take this impress. 

"We needs must love the highest wlim we see it*." 
Accordingly, children honour their parents, 
though they grow old and weak; and parents do 
not love their children less, or think them less the 
same persons, because they ma}^ be ill, or lose a limb. 
Yet, of course, if the body was what we recognize 
as the true man, and loved as such, the loss of a 
limb would by so much diminish his being, and with 

* Tennyson. Idylls of the King. 



I.] AND SCHOOL. II 

it our love for him. This is the case with an animal ; 
no one keeps a horse with its leg off, and for this 
reason. The body, then, is not man. But is the case 
different with intellect and intellectual knowledge? 
Is the intellect the man ? Do we really love people 
because they are clever and know much ? We ought 
to do so if cleverness is the quality which makes 
man man. But if this was the case, we should 
transfer our love as soon as any one who was cleverer, 
and knew more than our former friend, appeared. 
For love must follow the perception of true excel- 
lence of being, though it need not be affected at 
all by anything not essentially being. And friends 
would be cast off like old hunters and lame horses, 
in favour of more distinguished claimants. Nay, 
we should love the same person differently at dif- 
ferent times ; differently in sickness, and differently 
in health, according as his intellectual power was 
strong or weak. But the supposition that intellect 
is the true being of man, and that love depends 
on intellect is too absurd, when plainly stated, 
however much mankind may hazily honour it. In- 
tellect is only the highest instrument man possesses. 
Money is a great power as an instrument, but it 



12 EDUCATION [Chap. 

is justly considered vulgar to be purse-proud. Bodily 
strength was a very great power, aDd is still in 
some degree ; yet to live for the body only is to 
live the life of a beast. So also intellectual strength 
is a great power ; but to live for the intellect only 
is, as far as it is possible, to be a devil, not a 
man. All these powers are necessary but as instru- 
ments, not as guides, not as supreme ; however 
much they have usurped the throne, and are wor- 
shipped with a fond idolatry by the majority, 
although they may be combined with the most 
destructive or the meanest qualities. Men want to 
be in extremities in the desert before they find out 
that water is better than gold, and love, that will 
share its last drop, than the intellect that schemes 
how to rob you of your own. No one ought to 
reverence the clever thief; (the Egyptians however 
with great consistency did ;) and Reynard the Fox 
though highly successful, after skinning his old 
friend's toes for boots for himself, and cutting a 
knapsack out of another old crony's back, does not 
inspire much love, and is not generally quoted as 
a good example. 

Hence it comes to pass that although both 



I.] AXD SCHOOL. 13 

bodily strength and intellectual strength are needed 
for work, and trained to work and are the instru- 
ments by which the class rank of individuals and 
nations is attained, they do not ultimately decide 
the fate of their possessors. They are nothing more 
than instruments, capable of abuse as well as use, 
and the start gained by them only continues to profit 
so long as the true governing power, man's true self, 
that power by which love and hate exist irrespec- 
tive of strength and knowledge, directs these in- 
struments and this start to a right end. This power 
is supreme, it is the source from which all voluntary 
actions flow, to which all actions in their effect re- 
turn. This power is life, and life as far as it is true, 
does make perfect. True life makes all its instru- 
ments perfect, and puts all to a good use. Both 
body and intellect, guided by right love and right 
hate, can do wonderful and lasting things. 

The world has yet to try the experiment whether 
true life will not keep a nation from falling, and 
maintain it in the foremost rank. Or rather, whe- 
ther any nation will so seek after true life, rather 
than mere knowledge, and hold it fast when found, 
as to ensure the right use of the two slaves of the 



14 EDUCATION [Chap. 

lamp, for such they are, bodily and intellectual 
strength. The true life-power then must be the 
object, if it can be attained, both of men and of 
nations. It is clear at a glance that it is not in- 
herent in man, for if it was, no teaching or training 
would be required. There might be growth just as 
the body grows, but if the nature of man was good, 
and was true life, men would be good because they 
were men, and not require to be taught goodness ; 
just as man's body grows, because it is the nature of 
the body to grow, and food is received and digested 
by a natural and, at least as to its effect, unconscious 
process. That goodness requires to be taught declares 
at once a fallen nature. That there was original 
righteousness is evidenced both by its vestiges as a 
natural growth, however faint they may be, and also, 
to a Christian, by the promised gift of a new life, 
and grace to restore life in nature, not simply of a 
law to teach. But there is now no natural progress 
in the unassisted nature of man towards good. This 
is evident in the case of individuals, although in 
the case of the onward progress of the world other 
elements are so mixed up as to disturb the judg- 
ment. 



I.] AND SCHOOL. 1 5 

If there was a natural progress, age would be 
equivalent to goodness, or at least to improve- 
ment. But this is not the case; growing old is 
not growing good, unless the beginning of growth 
is good. Age only adds to the kind of growth, 
whatever that may be. In the case of a bad man, 
where there is no disturbing element to perplex 
and warp our judgment, it is evident that every 
successive year makes him worse, unless this growth 
is checked, and the older he grows, the worse he is, 
the more difficult to be moved, the harder against 
impression for good ; and if bodily vices are the chief 
evil, every year breaks down bodily life more and 
more, and kills him more quickly. But if this is 
the case with the individual, what is there to jDre- 
vent its being the case with a collection of indi- 
viduals, a nation? The natural progress is not 
altered by numbers ; one sheep or a million sheep 
are all sheep. If age intensifies evil in the indi- 
vidual man and brings death, age will intensify evil 
in the collection of men and bring death. And this 
was just the state of the heathen world, and what 
the wisest heathen saw. The sons of knowledge 
grew, to die ; and the ancient philosophers and 



1 6 EDUCATION [Chap. 

writers mournfully acknowledge that man, as they 
knew him, grew worse and worse in each genera- 
tion, in spite of civilization, nay, "because of it. For 
there is no natural progress towards perfection. 

Nature has to be restored, not merely to be 
taught. But because the perverted intellect must 
share in this renovation, and teaching is the engine 
that mainly moves the intellect, mankind have mis- 
taken the pains necessary to chasten, purify, humble, 
and elevate the intellect, for the work of Life ; and 
have curiously placed intellect on a throne, because of 
the trouble necessary to dethrone it ; mistaking the 
importance of bringing the greatest instrumental 
power under the guidance of a right principle of 
life, for the instrument itself being all powerful : 
whereas the usurped power of the instrument is 
the main result of the perversion of the nature 
which has to be restored. Intellectual power and 
knowledge then as guiding principles are usurpers, 
and do not lead to perfection. The lost life requires 
to be restored, there is need that man should do good 
out of right feeling and a right state of being. But 
this restoration of a fallen nature which needs re- 
newing, is gradual, and is therefore capable of train- 



I.] AND SCHOOL. 1 7 

ing. The life-powers require replanting, man's 
nature wants to cast out false feeling and to feel 
rightly, to love and hate truly, from its own inward 
essence ; and to a certain extent cultivation and 
training pertain to the guiding power under these 
circumstances, as well as to the instrumental powers. 
It becomes then all important that this training 
should be of the best kind. True education under- 
takes this. True education is nothing less than 
bringing everything that men have learnt from God, 
or from experience, to bear first upon the moral and 
spiritual being by means of a well-governed society 
and healthy discipline, so that it should love and 
hate aright, and through this, secondly, making the 
body and intellect perfect, as instruments necessary 
for carrying on the work of earthly progress ; train- 
ing the character, the intellect, the body, each 
through the means adapted to each. This is the 
object of education ; and all the works of discipline 
and self-government, of exercising the intellect, of 
exercising the body, go on at once, and, in a good 
system, mutually support each other in their ap- 
pointed places. 

Once more, then, we are brought to the question 



1 3 EDUCATION [Chap. 

of time. Those mighty ten years still determine, 
not perhaps who is the Lest man, for goodness 
cannot be gauged like Greek or a knowledge of 
Euclid, but certainly who are the most highly 
developed representatives of humanity, amongst 
whom the most perfect men will be found : not 
mere intellectual gladiators proud of their skill 
standing by the road side to cut and slash the 
burdened travellers, if any chance to be a head 
taller than his fellows, or to bear a more precious 
burden ; levying black mail on working men ; but 
well-trained thoughtful labourers themselves, able 
perhaps to fight, but viewing the necessity as a 
sore hindrance to truth, and no glory. Those mighty 
ten years of preparation and practice determine, as 
they are used or abused, the position of each 
nation in the scale of creation. How much depends, 
then, on where and how they are spent. Whatever 
may be thought, a great school in a great nation 
is nothing less than a heart in the body receiving 
the young blood, and sending it out through every 
vein, and artery, and limb, aerated and imbued 
with its power. If the heart is diseased, what of 
the blood? If the heart is healthy, it will send 



L] AND SCHOOL. 1 9 

health and healthy energy through the whole. The 
mighty ten years that change the fate of the world 
are passed at school, and all experience proves that 
with few exceptions the after life is cast in the same 
mould as the life at school was cast in. This is 
certain, there is no such thing as making up lost 
time. If a man has powers by which he can waste 
years and nevertheless outstrip his companions, he 
can neither catch up his true self, what he might 
have been without waste, nor outstrip the mark that 
still flies before him in the infinite space of undis- 
covered knowledge. There is no real getting back 
lost time. As is the boy so is the man, and edu- 
cation is nothing less than the presiding power 
that determines the fate of both. Education is 
training true life. 



2—2 



CHAPTER II. 

Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, 

Eating a Christmas pie, 

He put in his thumb, and he pulled out a plum, 

And said, What a good boy am I. 

EDUCATION is training true life. But too often 
there is no more sure barometer of the state of 
the family finances than the sum spent in educa- 
tion. Retrenchment first begins there. And rightly 
so, if education means, 

Getting the children out of the way with an 

easy conscience : which is a luxury. 
Getting them an advance on the home nursery : 

which is a luxury. 
Getting them a good connexion : which is a 

doubtful luxury. 
Giving them a chance in an intellectual lottery : 
which is a chance. 
Therefore if retrenchment is needed, by all means 
let it begin in these things. 



CHAPTEE III. 

What is Truth ? said Pilate ; and would not stay for an answer. 

Bacon's Essays, I. 

Now for the mighty ten years. 

There is a double object in school training ; 
first, the training the life ; secondly, the training 
the intellect and body : first, the setting the loving 
and hating on a right track ; secondly, the training 
the instrumental powers rightly. 

The first can only be done indirectly ; for forma- 
tion of character and a right spirit is only in a 
very slight degree capable of being made a matter 
of imparted knowledge. Boys or men become brave, 
and hardy, and true, not by being told to be so, 
but by being nurtured in a brave, and hardy, and 
true way, surrounded with objects likely to excite 
these feelings, exercised in a manner calculated to 
draw them out unconsciously. For all true feeling- 
is unconscious in proportion to its perfection. And 
as there is no moment in which habits are not in 



2 2 EDUCATION [Chap. 

process of formation, there is nothing whatever 
which cannot be made to bear on this process ; 
nothing indeed which does not of necessity bear on 
it. In a school, therefore, it is of the utmost im- 
portance that the whole government and machinery 
should in its minutest particulars do this by perfect 
truth and perfect freedom. 

It follows then that no falseness in the govern- 
ment, no falseness in the working plan, in or out 
of school, can make boys true. Whatever is pro- 
fessed must be done. 

If a school professes to teach, then every boy 
must have his share of teaching. There must be 
no knowledge-scramble, or the untruth will make 
itself felt. 

If a school professes to train, then every boy 
must be really known, his wants supplied, his cha- 
racter consulted, or the untruth will make itself felt. 

If a school professes to board boys, then every 
boy must find proper food, and proper lodging, and 
no meanness, or the untruth will make itself felt. 

A sufficient number of masters, variety of occu- 
pation, a feeling of being known and cared for, a 
spot free from intrusion, however small, are neces- 



III.] AND SCHOOL. 23 

sities in a good school ; and the want of these, or 
of any of the other real requirements for training 
and teaching properly, is a sort of acted falsehood ; 
for that which is professed is not done. It does not 
the least follow that this is the fault of the men 
engaged in these schools. The constitution and legal 
status of a very large number of schools absolutely 
compels this kind of imperfect system, as will be 
proved further on. And even where this is not the 
case, immemorial custom and popular opinion, at 
least as far as hearty support is an evidence of po- 
pular opinion, contribute to maintain such defects, 
and are almost as strong as law. It is not possible 
for the wisest or bravest men, individually, to break 
through the systems in which they find themselves 
working units. They can but toil and toil, as 
they do, to make the best of it, and lament their 
own helplessness to do more. 

But the fact remains, whatever may be the cause ; 
and a lower standard of truth and efficiency must 
be looked for, wherever the theory of a school is at 
variance with its practice. It is a certainty that the 
continual presence of any false influence in a society 
must have a great effect for evil evenwhen the cause 



24 ED VGA TION [Chap. 

is not known or suspected. To train the life truly, 
implies a thorough atmosphere of truth. Like moun- 
tain air, the lungs should expand to drink it in, and 
the limbs will feel the freshness ; whilst the languid 
step and feeble breathing are too surely the con- 
sequence of living over sewers, however hidden 
they may be. Poison is not less poison because it 
is invisible, or life less life for the same reason. 
Good air is always invisible, and the subtle working 
of a great principle of life and truth can no more 
be caught and labelled than the virtue of air itself. 
But some of the necessary conditions, in the absence 
of which it cannot exist, may be laid down without 
difficulty. 

The training of the life then in the mighty 
ten years we have to deal with, depends on the 
conditions under which the life is passed, and is 
affected for good or evil by everything with which 
the living being is brought in contact. So that 
every word that in the following pages bears on the 
proper teaching, boarding, amusements, or studies 
of each boy, and the machinery necessary in con- 
sequence, treats also of true life and healthy exist- 
ence, just as an essay on drainage, ventilation, 



Ill] AND SCHOOL. 25 

food, proper house-room, proper employment, would 
be treating of health. And the poor and the school- 
boy are alike in this fatal point, neither can change 
their own circumstances, their dwellings, their occu- 
pations, those walls and sanitary conditions, which 
may be, nevertheless, matters of life or death. It 
must be done by power from above, or not done at 
all. So, if truth and honour are required in a 
school, all things must be framed in such a way 
as to work out the objects professed with thorough 
truth ; and any want of truth, anything that is false 
will inevitably find its way into the life of the boys, . 
and taint it. And no wonder; nothing is detected 
so soon as inconsistency, and eyes looking upwards 
see sharply. Those who stand low on the ladder 
observe the dirt under the boots of those above 
them, however spotless their coats may be, and are 
apt to care little for preachments dropped down 
from aloft, telling them to keep clean and be good. 
Those who look up ought to see no dirt. Truth is 
required to produce truth, and when the machinery 
is right, and all things are working truly, truth may 
be fairly expected in return, and boys may be 
trusted, and can be trusted, safely. 



26 EDUCATIOX [Chap. 

There is no more tendency in boys to betray 
their friends than there is in men ; nay, far less 
tendency. But, then, who are their friends ? The 
whole plan and practice of the school must convince 
them that they and their governors truly form one 
body, and that the government is their friend. 
Whereas, in the boy idea, there have been two rival, 
powers side by side, masters and boys, with divided 
interests ; and school life therefore has resolved itself 
into a match between the two bodies, in a sort of 
Spartan fashion — power on one side, endurance and 
cunning on the other. So the fox has never left off 
preying on their vitals as they stand with a false 
appearance of innocence before their masters. And 
there is a sham nobility in this, for in an enemy's 
country all things are fair, and war knows no nice 
distinctions. The marvel, however, is, how this can 
be considered a training for true life, when honour 
comes to mean liberty to deceive any master, pro- 
vided the secret-society bond is held fast* But, 
theoretically, the masters are training boys to be 
true, whilst, practically, to be false to the trainers 

* His honour rooted in dishonour stood, 
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

Guinevere. Tennyson. 



III.] AND SCHOOL. 2J 

of truth becomes the recognized code of honour 
amongst the boys who are to be trained, and must 
do so, as long as there are divided interests. Wher- 
ever teaching has got to mean bringing forward the 
clever, and training, enforced obedience to some 
rigid general laws, that fall on all alike, giving, as 
all general laws do, great opportunity of license to 
the bad who evade them, combined with great hard- 
ship to the good who keep them — where mob-law of 
this kind is training, and pouring knowledge into 
troughs is teaching, and other double purposes exist, 
under such circumstances it seems right for the boy 
to stick to his flag. It is the least of two evils for 
him to be true to his companions at the expense, 
if need be, of the powers that deal so strangely with 
them. 

Nothing but truth in all the main plan, and 
thorough completeness through all its functions in 
the school machinery, both in doors and out, can 
make boys feel that the school is but one body, one 
army ; that masters and boys are united in one life, 
with one standard round which they rally, one battle 
cry, truth and honour for all ; one object, true pro- 
gress and true power. But let this be the case, and 



28 EDUCATION [Chap. 

then the boy-allegiance becomes due to the common 
standard, not to the traitor who betrays it ; is due to 
the good cause, not to the mean coward who deserts 
it ; is due to the true friends and true men who 
work with him, not to the taproom heroes whose 
ideal is a tapster. Then the boys amongst them- 
selves will uphold their laws, just as Englishmen up- 
hold theirs, and think it no shame to make thieves 
and traitors know their place. 

No great progress can be made until the con- 
viction of the one body, the one army, is stamped 
on the school heart, and has become its creed. 
But when it has, every thing is changed. The 
antagonism between in-school and out-of-school, be- 
tween work and play, between body, intellect, and 
heart, disappears ; all is in harmony. For the young, 
learning to have faith in the old, believe with them 
that life is one piece, and that each good helps all 
other good ; health of body, health of intellect, health 
of heart, all uniting to form the true man, and being 
the common object of teachers and taught. Then 
the old help the young in all good things, imposing 
no unnecessary rules, thinking energetic power, in 
its degree, as good in the field as in the study. For 



III.] AND SCHOOL. 29 

who really wishes to see boys made all head, like 
misshapen dwarfs, half men, powerful indeed in 
subtlety and intellect, but stunted in practical life 
and kindly growth, and cut off from common hu- 
manity ? The first beginnings of knowledge are 
never very sweet ; but neither are the first begin- 
nings of most games. Cricket and football are rather 
exacting in their demands on the patience of their 
devotees at first. The head is not all in all. How 
many would learn better if knowledge came to 
them in a human shape, instead of in this dwarf- 
ish, magicianlike, uncanny fashion! how many of 
those who do learn would be happy and beneficent 
workers, instead of reproductions of this unhuman 
power! It is the separation of the parts of life 
that makes the difference, the cutting life in two 
halves, as if a boy's choice lay between manly 
games or learning ; when the choice really is, 
take both, like bread and wine ; for if bread 
strengthens man's heart, the oil and wine of games 
make him a cheerful countenance. Life is not all 
bread, and each helps the other. There is no lack 
of ability in boys generally, it is character that is 
wanted to ensure success ; but character may be 



30 EDUCATION [Chap. 

helped. Cleverness is common enough, but the 
stedfast worth that can patiently endure, is wanting. 
Nevertheless, it is one thing to endure patiently, 
when, in Miltonian phrase, Apollo sings, and ano- 
ther not to run away from a hideous and seemingly 
malignant dwarf. Boys, it is true, may justly be 
blamed to almost any extent for the want of interest 
they show, but it should never be forgotten that 
they come to school to have all good things, as 
much as possible, put into them ; and their con- 
dition, however desperate, is the work to be dealt 
with by a school. The worse their condition as a 
body, the more difficult it will be for a school to 
improve it ; and the more need will there be that 
every conceivable power should be brought to bear 
on it. Want of good material does not excuse want 
of power to deal with it, but the direct contrary. 
The worse the material, the more power is required, 
and the greater skill in those who work it. There 
must be a thorough unity in object in teachers 
and taught, which can only be brought about by 
all the life being kindly and carefully provided for, 
not sections only of it, and those imperfectly. Yet 
it would be easy to draw a vivid picture of the 



III.] AND SCHOOL. 31 

troubles and dangers of a master's life, of its daily 
vexations, its incessant work, and the criticisms ! 
which are not powerless, but may be ruin. So that 
a man digging knee-deep, in a muddy ditch, with 
banks so high as to shut out the landscape, in a 
hot sun, and a permanent swarm of flies and gnats 
round his head, is no unfair description of the life 
of many a deserving teacher. But the difficulties 
and dangers form no part of this present inves- 
tigation, which is only concerned with what is neces- 
sary to make a great school perfect. Whether the 
people of England will require perfection as far as 
possible, or enable the schools to aim at it, would 
belong to an entirely different discussion. At pre- 
sent it is important to lay down clearly that the 
teachers of truth ought to have everything about 
them true. For however the doors may be barred, 
the hole that the cat gets through the kitten can 
get through also, and most certainly will do so. 



CHAPTER IV. 

"God willing, he will be a credit to his country," said the 
Burgomaster. 

The words rang in Friedrich's ears over and over again, like the 
changes of bells. They dawned before his eyes as if he saw them in 
a book. They were written in his heart as if " graven with an iron 
pen and lead in the rock for ever." 

" God willing, I hope he will be a credit to the toivn." 

" God ivilling, he will be a credit to his country." 

" Me shall have a liberal education, and ivill be a great man." 
Friedrich's Ballad, by J. H. G. 

How then are the ten years to be spent? An 
important question of principle meets us at the 
very outset, though the common answer would be 
readily given, " Get knowledge." But this does 
not satisfy the iaquiry, neither is it the real an- 
swer. For it does not at all follow even if the 
ultimate object of the educated man is knowledge, 
that therefore the object of his preparation is know- 
ledge. Far from it. Indeed, the very fact of years 
of preparation implies that there is a necessity for 
unproductive practice before the real harvest begins. 
Perhaps the question may be cleared if we examine 



IV.] AND SCHOOL. 33 

first the case of the body and its preparation. Let 
us suppose that the ultimate object of all bodily 
power is the attainment of wealth; it is clear that 
health, strength, and aptitude for work, would be 
the immediate object of any bodily training. It 
is also clear that as far as power goes, the less 
the training of the body was cramped by unduly 
exercising any one part, the better would be the 
result ; and that if happiness or wealth depends 
on a well-trained body, happiness and wealth would 
be increased in direct proportion to the degree in 
which the whole body was trained. The first object 
of a man, then, would be to train the body to be 
strong, without considering whether the exercise 
employed in doing this would make him wealthy 
or not. Any kind of labour, however lucrative, that 
made the young weak in body, would be fatal to 
the end proposed — to the real gain at last. And 
any kind of exercise, however barren, which made 
the young strong, would be the right way of train- 
ing, and the most productive in the end. But the 
true object of education is strength of mind and 
character, and any process that conduces to give this 
kind of strength is true, even though little know- 



34 EDUCATION [Chap. 

ledge is gained by it. A weak mind filled with facts 
collected from others, is not the end proposed. The 
mind requires healthy exercise, the end proposed 
is strength of mind, and it is a matter of com- 
parative indifference, provided the result is sure, 
whether the years of practice and preparation are 
full of immediate gain or not. In a word, nothing- 
can be said before the distinction between the strong 
mind and the stuffed mind, between training and 
cram, is thoroughly recognized and decided. And 
this is no light matter. The whole tendency of 
the present day is to glorify quick returns — va- 
rious knowledge, cram, in fact — and to depreciate 
thought, training, and strength. But the two are 
utterly distinct. Cram depends partly on memory, 
which is a good beast of burden, but nothing more ; 
sometimes a mere jackass, carrying a precious load 
for others — and partly on the ease and attractiveness 
of novelty and change. But, on the surface, judicious 
cram is very attractive ; there is no denying that 
it is pleasant to make a show at a small cost. The 
worker sits down on sunny sands, as it were, and 
goldwashes ; the labour is light, the return imme- 
diate. All along the surface he scoops here and 



IV.] AND SCHOOL. 35 

there, and soon has his little heap of glittering 
pin-points of precious metal, of shining sand, and 
coloured shells. It is a real pleasure collecting 
them, they make a nice show at once, sparkle at 
dinner tables, and are the delight of fond relatives. 
But whenever he comes to the hard rock underneath, 
as he soon does everywhere, the sand-washer leaves 
it alone. Yet the true gold is there, the bedded 
gold, which none but the strong can wrest, not the 
leavings of past workers, but the fresh virgin mines, 
full of gold in themselves, and nerving all the powers 
of man in the getting it. But quick returns though 
small, quick, and easy, are more attractive than 
great returns delayed, and the laborious exercise 
of the strength required to get them. In fact, sand- 
washing and rock-cleaving, cram, and mental train- 
ing are distinct things. Any one, with fair intellectual 
quickness, can skim the surface of subjects innume- 
rable, and find a pleasure in doing so, and make a 
great show, whilst, as yet, the sweat trickles from 
the brow of the rock-cleaver, and his sinewy arms 
strain and strengthen, but he can show no gold. 

This is precisely the case that has to be con- 
sidered in education. Is the mind to be made 

3—2 



36 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

strong for after life? or is the mind to be stuffed 
with present seeming gain ? Sand-washing or rock- 
cleaving, cram or training, which is it to be ? 
Though this is not quite a fair statement. For as 
soon as the mind begins to strengthen, the rock- 
cleaver, in the intervals of his true work, will be 
able to collect, as a recreation, far more than his early 
rival, the sand-washer. The work of the one will 
be the play of the other. In fact, the question is 
only the original one of education versus non- educa- 
tion in a somewhat more subtle form. Every one 
sees that to learn nothing, but at once to begin to 
work for food and clothing, is fatal to wealth or 
greatness. But, for the same reason, the allowing 
the prospect of immediate gain to withdraw the 
mind from the slower but more perfect progress of 
training, is, in its degree, fatal, as interfering with' 
the true end of education before its time. It may 
be necessary — it often is necessary — to direct the 
mind at once to professional studies, to narrow its 
range, and endanger its power, but it is a misfortune 
to have to do so ; just as much as it is a misfortune 
to be obliged to spend a shorter time than others 
in education, and to spend it at an inferior school. 



IV.] AND SCHOOL. 37 

But inferior schools are better than none, and a 
shorter time likewise than no time, but they are 
not advantages as might almost be supposed from 
the practice of many. The various-knowledge-neces- 
sity, if it exists, must be dealt with, but it is to be 
deplored. If it must be, face the must, and mourn 
over it ; but it is not wise to glory in being a mental 
sand-washer. It is not wise to glory in gold pins' 
heads, with the mine untouched before you, and 
you without courage or strength to work it. Tho- 
roughly to master one noble subject is the only way 
to test or produce the strong mind. Fifty subjects 
may be gone over half-way, or even three parts, 
whilst the last quarter of one only shall foil the 
strongest Fifty scoops of sand are no proof what- 
ever of the power that can cleave the rock. 

Training is the object of true education, know- 
ledge is secondary. And although training cannot 
be communicated without making knowledge the 
exercise ground; neither, on the other hand, can 
it be communicated without carefully guarding 
against making amount of knowledge the imme- 
diate object. As an actual fact, both mind and 
body are made strong by doing the sort of things 



o 



3 EDUCATION [Chap. 



which when strong they will be required to do. But 
strength is the object, and training the process. The 
mighty ten years that change the world are years 
of training. Even if the young miner never split 
a fragment from the rock in his ten years of toil, 
but he does split many, he would be turned out more 
fit, more sinewy, more strong, than the sand-washer 
with his glittering pin-points ; and certain to suc- 
ceed in after life from trained power in himself, 
not merely the master of a little loose treasure. 
But this requires faith, endurance, waiting. Yet 
it is ignorance of the true object, rather than any 
other cause, that misleads so many. The British 
mind is not tolerant of shams when detected : but 
the British mind, with its quick perception and 
hardness, is very apt to forget that a good sham 
does not look like a sham. It is essential to a 
good sham to appear true. And there is a seeming 
boast of being practical (a much-abused word) in 
the unpractical sand-washing, that is practical in 
its immediate gains, unpractical in its future weak- 
ness; practical in the present in a small degree, 
unpractical for the future in a great degree. 

The subject also, as all things pertaining to 



IV.] AND SCHOOL. 39 

mankind must ever be, is much complicated by the 
disturbing influence of those who, under any theory 
or system, would be bad, but whose short-comings are, 
of course, assigned to the system which has the mis- 
fortune to deal with them. Bad teachers and bad 
workers both contribute to hide or distort truth. 
For bad, or neglectful trainers do not turn out 
their pupils strong, and yet they have no gold-dust 
to show. And bad pupils will not work and make 
their minds strong, and they, too, will have no 
gold-dust to show. This is inevitable in dealing 
with human nature. There is no demonstrative 
truth in such dealing. Belief in principles — in a 
word, faith — is required in all things that touch 
the life of man. Statistics, such as can be got, of 
mental processes, will by judicious management, 
prove any view, any one wishes to have proved. 
The voluntary noodle and the involuntary noodle in 
theory are different, but in statistics the same. A 
is fed, and B choked by the same quantity of mental 
food. The partizans of each have an equally strong- 
case : the one set appeals to the corpse of B, the 
other to the robust form of A. But neither proves 
anything as to the merits or demerits of the system 



40 EDUCATION [Chap. 

they were both under, unless B's intellectual death, 
and A's intellectual life, can be shown to be rightly 
deducible from the system. Which may or may 
not be the case. That depends on the principles 
of the treatment they received. If B committed 
suicide, his trainer was not in fault ; if he did not, 
he was. If A fed himself, his trainer deserves 
little credit ; if he did not, but was really trained, 
let the credit be given where it is due. 

It is well to bear in mind that principles may be 
plain, though the working out of the principles may 
be far from plain, but may become, for a time and 
in single instances, a matter of almost pure faith, as 
every failure is visible, and success very often not so. 
It cannot, however, admit of doubt that training 
is the object of education, however people may 
differ about the means. It can scarcely be denied 
that spreading the efforts over too wide a surface 
is not training. This narrows the question to some- 
what such limits as these. Let the mind be exer- 
cised in one noble subject — a subject, if such can 
be found, capable of calling into play reasoning 
powers, fancy, imagination, strength, activity, and 
endurance, and be sure that in the intervals of 



IV.] AND SCHOOL. 41 

work there will be plenty of time for less exhaustive 
pursuits. The weak man's work is the strong man's 
play. If the subject also itself embraces a wide 
field of knowledge, so much the better ; working 
in a pretty country is better than working in a 
dull one. The universal consent of many ages has 
found such a subject in the study of Greek and 
Latin literature — the classics, as they are familiarly 
called. The following chapter will be devoted to 
examining and justifying this decision. 



CHAPTER V. 

The artificial bird was then made to sing alone, and had equal 
success to the real one. With what splendour, too, it presented 
itself, glittering like diadems, necklaces, and bracelets of precious 
stones. Thirty-three times it sang off the same piece as accurately 
as clockwork, and yet was not tired. The people would gladly have 
heard it once more from the beginning, but the Emperor thought 
that for a change the real nightingale should be heard a little. 
However, she was nowhere to be found. No one had noticed how, 
taking advantage of being unobserved, she had flown out of the 
open window, away into the green forest, where the sea-breeze blew. 

Andersen's Tales. The Nightingale. 

It seems at first sight very strange that the classics 
should maintain their ground century after century 
in spite of progress and science as the main training 
of the young. A subject is made the principal study 
of the mighty ten years which only one or two of 
those who work at it will ever visibly make use of 
in after life. Nay more, very many will never look 
into a classical author again after leaving the Uni- 
versity. This subject is divided by centuries of 
progress from the present age, and is empty of all 
the knowledge of which moderns are so proud. The 



Chap. V.] EDUCATION, &c. 43 

languages are dead, much of the thought in them 
is dead also, embalmed, not living. Heathens are 
the writers. Their writings contain heathen views, 
and in some of the most celebrated there is much 
gross immorality, which at all events can be read, 
even if it is not necessary to read it. The two 
great powers of the world, religion and knowledge, 
seem alike to forbid this supremacy, and yet they 
maintain their ground, and will ever do so as long 
as a nation cares for true education. 

By what magic, then, do these dead old heathen 
books continue to sway the world \ 

First of all, they are the perfection of mere hu- 
manity, as distinct from that living power breathed 
into all modern life, literature, and artist-work by 
Christianity. No one can know the true progress 
of human life and thought, who does not know 
Avhat it has been. All sound criticism is based on 
this knowledge. 

Secondly, they are the means by which the his- 
tory of the early world, its facts, its wars, its trea- 
ties, its social life, become known to us. No one can 
know the true history of the world, or its present 
state, who does not know what the world has been. 



44 EDUCATION [Chap. 

Thirdly, they are the perfection of art, the per- 
fection of the shaping skill of the human mind; and 
whilst all things that aj)peal to the eye or ear, cre- 
ation, pictures, sculpture, literature, are all in their 
degree languages of which speech is the most subtle, 
the classics as languages are the perfection of mere 
word-power and form. 

Fourthly, being perfect as languages in them- 
selves, they are the fittest training as to how thought 
should be expressed, calling into play every power 
of the human mind. 

And lastly, they are as languages the foundation 
of our own ; and it is not too much to say that an 
accurate knowledge of our own tongue, one of the 
chief ends of education, cannot be attained without 
them. 

These various reasons are worthy of being con- 
sidered more at length. To begin with the last two 
points first. It is scarcely possible to speak the Eng- 
lish language with accuracy and precision, wuthout a 
knowledge of Latin and Greek. It is not possible 
to have a masterly freedom in the use of words, or 
a critical judgment capable of supporting its deci- 
sions by proof, without such a knowledge. Very 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 45 

many words actually belong to one or other of these 
two languages, and are borrowed directly from them, 
not often in exactly the same sense which they bore 
originally, but always in some sense derived from 
the old word, which requires to be known in order 
to have an exact perception of the later meaning. 
Not unfrequently also these derived words are used 
in two or more senses in the modern language, and 
these senses apparently quite contrary to each other. 
The word prevent, for instance, in its common usage, 
and prevent in the Prayer, " Prevent us, Lord, in 
all our doings, with Thy most gracious favour," etc. 
is an example of this. It is a Latin word meaning 
originally, " to come before!' In the prayer the word 
is used in the sense of coming before us to guide and 
help, but commonly it is taken in the sense of 
coming before to stop and hinder. Now, without 
this knowledge, what connexion is there between 
helping and hindering? Such enigmas are of fre- 
quent occurrence. The present Archbishop of Dub- 
lin's book on words is an interesting commentary 
on this part of the subject. How inexplicable the 
word civil in its sense of courteous, and civil in the 
expression civil war, must appear to a person igno- 



46 EDUCATION [Chap. 

rant of its original meaning. Still more puzzling 
are the compounded words, such as deceive, receive, 
and a host of others, whenever any discussion of 
their exact meaning arises amongst ignorant per- 
sons. And the exact meaning of words is the sub- 
ject of more controversies, and inaccuracy in their 
use has had more fatal effects on mankind than ail 
the wars that have ever been waged. 

Again, many words from natural friction, as. it 
were, lose much of their power to a mind ignorant 
of their real meaning; like old coins, the stamp of 
the royal mint is worn away, the figure gone, the 
sjiarpness of edge and freshness of hue become dulled. 
How different, it may almost be said, would have 
been the progress of ideas if the word ''edify" had 
either never been used, or retained its freshness. If 
in the place of a vapid sense of improvement the 
living power of building up instead of pulling down 
had sunk deep into the national mind. All practical 
life is contained in that single word, "build up!' 
To build up, to construct, is to work like the Cre- 
ator ; to pull down, to destroy, is to be an enemy 
to life ; but it seems a great power, and many 
worship it. Or, again, how much has the word tribu- 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 47 

lation lost. Hear the Archbishop of Dublin. " It 
is derived from the Latin ' tribulum,' which was the 
threshing-instrument, or roller, whereby the Roman 
husbandman separated the corn from the husks ; 
and ' tribulatio' in its primary significance was the 
act of this separation. But some Latin writer of 
the Christian Church appropriated the word and 
image for the setting forth of an higher truth ; and 
sorrow, distress, and adversity being the appointed 
means for the separating in men of whatever in 
them was light, trivial, and poor, from the solid and 
the true, their chaff from their wheat, therefore he 
calls these sorrows and trials, ' tribulations,' thresh- 
ings, that is of the inner spiritual man, without 
which there could be no fitting him for the hea- 
venly garner." The Archbishop of Dublin then 
proceeds to quote a poem of George Withers, which 
"from first to last is only an expanding of the image 
and thought which this word had implicitly given 1 ." 
But volumes might be written on this subject; 
it is impossible to do more here than hint at its 
extent. Neither is it necessary to do more than 
mention how many controversies in Law, as well as 
in Religion, turn entirely on a right understanding of 
1 Trench On the Study of Words. 



48 EDUCATION [Chap. 

words derived from the Greek and Latin languages. 
It is enough to remark that the gravest questions 
that can agitate mankind, as well as the most va- 
ried, interesting, and amusing treasures of thought, 
equally belong to the mere knowledge of word-mean- 
ing conferred by an acquaintance with Greek and 
Latin. And how the mysterious feat of spelling is 
accomplished without it, must ever remain a wonder. 
But the examination of single words, notwith- 
standing the infinite fund of information they con- 
tain, forms a very small part indeed of the value 
of these language-studies. The structure of lan- 
guage, its arrangement and grammatical powers, 
form a curious, subtle, and ever-moving puzzle, 
calling into play the closest reasoning and logical 
powers when studied intelligently. The main ana- 
tomy of language, as language is the body which 
human thought takes to itself, is the same in all 
languages. For man is one in nature, and man's 
thought therefore must have a unity of expression, 
a oneness of body, which in its groundwork will be 
the same all over the world. But just as races have 
their own peculiar type of flesh and blood dividing 
them as races, so have languages. And, again, as 
the changes of bodily conformation in the individual 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 4 T 

are practically infinite, so that no two persons in the 
whole world are precisely alike, so also are the 
changes of individual speech and expression ; a dis- 
similar similarity is everywhere apparent in lan- 
guages. Now every educated person reads, and 
every educated person writes, and has to compose 
written statements constantly. To be able to take 
a wide view of the books read, and form a sound 
judgment on them, is no mean power, and one which 
must daily find something to exercise it. Many 
books would never be written, a still larger number 
never be read, if the study of the masterpieces of 
ancient literature could be brought within the reach 
of a wider circle of students. Excellence effectually 
represses all caricatures of itself. Reading a really 
bad book is about on a par with kissing a monkey ; 
both are so pitifully like and unlike humanity. 
Even our grammars are not free from gross errors, 
which at all events a knowledge of Greek and Latin 
enables a very moderate linguist to detect. Any 
person familiar with the Mood forms of the classical 
languages, and in the habit of seeing the condi- 
tional particle answering to our "if" used with In- 
dicative Moods will not be likely to acquiesce in a 

4 



JO EDUCATION [Chap. 

statement that "If" is the sign of the Subjunctive 
Mood in English. The fact that it cannot be, would 
be plain ; whether he could prove the absurdity of 
the statement or not. In the arrangement of words 
in sentences, again, no rules can be laid down that 
shall not have so many exceptions, as either to be 
almost useless if disregarded, or a strait waistcoat 
if observed ; whereas the principles of arrange- 
ment are clear enough, and in Latin and Greek 
every sentence illustrates them. In all languages 
sentences will be arranged so as to present the idea 
to the mind in the clearest and most forcible man- 
ner. This is done in any language with case-forms 
by getting as early as possible in the sentence some- 
thing to represent or lead up to every idea about to 
be introduced. For instance, the following English 

sentence, which shall be numbered according to its 

11 2 

grammatical connexion, "iEneas perturbed by sud- 

2 3 4 3 _ 

den fear seizes a sword," appears in Latin as, Corripit 

2 1 2 4 1 

hie subita trepidus formidine ferrum iEneas. 

Observe the English arrangement, 112 2 3 4 

the Latin arrangement is, 3 2 12 4 1 

By which three ideas are introduced to notice, 

and with greater force, whilst English is bringing 



Y.] AXD SCHOOL. 51 

forward two. The explanation is easy. In the 
Latin language, the shape of the word tells at 
once to what part of the sentence it belongs, 
therefore there can be no confusion created by 
introducing each idea in the sentence in its order 
of importance. And the ideas are presented more 
rapidly to the mind by having the catchwords of 
each put as soon as possible, 3. 2. 1. instead of 
1-1. 2-2, and more forcibly as 3. 2. 1. instead of 
1. 2. 3, and equally clearly, as the shape of the 
words prevents confusion in Latin, but not in 
English. "Seizes by sudden perturbed fear a 
sword iEneas," proves this point. It follows, how- 
ever, from these and like examples, that the study 
of different languages is absolutely necessary to 
enable a person to understand the true principles 
of arrangement, to give freedom of judgment, and 
a sound knowledge of what is admissible and inad- 
missible in each language ; always bearing in mind 
that, however intelligible an arrangement may be, 
if it is contrary to the general habit of the lan- 
guage, the fact of its being unusual will draw 
attention to it ; and attention ought never to be 
attracted without sufficient reason. 

4—2 



52 EDUCATION [Chap. 

It follows from this, that a study of the Clas- 
sics is invaluable in the matter of the arrange- 
ment of words ; and arrangement means beauty, 
clearness, and force. A good Greek or Latin sen- 
tence is like a bit of tesselated pavement, where 
all the separate pieces unite to make an har- 
monious effect of colour, besides giving a pic- 
ture. The English language is wonderfully rich 
and expressive, but it is wanting in the clear pro- 
portions and shapely power of the Classics. 

It may, however, be asserted that modern lan- 
guages would form an equal training. There are 
two great reasons why they do not. The first — one 
that will be entered into further on — that the Clas- 
sical languages are, as languages, the most perfect 
in art, and severe in shape, and structure, that the 
world knows. The other also is not without weight. 
In a modern language, the fact of its being a living- 
speech is greatly against its being a training power. 
This may seem strange, but memory is not training, 
and it is easy to slide into the belief that a modern 
language is known when a person can speak it well, 
which is very far from being the case, as nothing 
may have been employed but memory. German 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 53 

also is the only language familiar to us which has 
anything like a complete structure to make it valu- 
able as a language-study. In the case of French, 
the fact that it is principally valued for conversa- 
tional purposes would of itself render it to a great 
degree unfit for training purposes, even if its lite- 
rature and grammar were all that could be desired ; 
because conversational fluency has nothing what- 
ever to do with mental training. A subtle pro- 
nunciation, too, is a great drawback, as it takes 
time that might be employed in examining lan- 
guage, and drinking in the beauty of literature, 
in simply learning to form sounds; and the more 
a sound-making power is esteemed and glorified, 
the less attention will be paid to the solid, lasting 
part of language. Even if we take our own lan- 
guage, valuable as it is as a study, which should 
always accompany every other language-training, in 
itself it wants those qualities which the Classics 
possess ; though very rich, it is not severe in struc- 
ture; and, moreover, it is not possible to make the 
mind examine a familiar object with the same at- 
tention as an unfamiliar one, until the mind has been 
trained, and the present discussion is how to train it. 



54 EDUCATION [Chap. 

It is, then, a curious, but certain fact, that 
Greek and Latin are wonderfully fitted to be train- 
ing languages, because they are dead languages, as 
this insures the attention being directed to actual 
language-study, and not merely to sound-formation 
or tricks of memory. And the training process is 
carried out by a constant comparison of grammar 
and structure, which calls into play the logical and 
reasoning faculties in no slight degree; by constant 
translation and re-translation, both on paper and 
viva voce, which exercises the mind in every con- 
ceivable way, besides suggesting and supplying in- 
finite food for fancy, imagination, and reflection. If 
any one will consider that the master-thoughts of 
the ancient world are continually being dissected, 
criticised, and examined ; that they are required 
to be reproduced in our own tongue both in prose 
and poetry, at sight or with preparation, on paper 
or viva voce, and that this is being done for years, 
some idea may be formed of the amount of readiness 
and skill in handling mental weapons, of the per- 
sonal activity, and strength, and defiance of over- 
work, produced by a successful course of this. The 
composition alone is a marvellous training, and 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 55 

though verse composition has often been inveighed 
against as a luxury or worse, it is a great aid in 
mastering a language, and quite indispensable in 
all the more advanced points of criticism, taste, and 
true power. Even the humblest efforts improve 
the ear, in some degree enrich the mind, exercise 
it, and though it may remain blind to beauty, pre- 
serve it from gross want of taste. Thus, whilst 
the veriest beginner, if in earnest, must get much 
good, it is not too much to say that a Shakspere 
would find his powers exercised in reproducing, in 
a fitting garb of beauty, the glorious shapes of the 
ancient world ; that is to say as a training, for 
the working in these old forms acts as a great 
restraint on free movement, and is intended to do 
so. It is a sort of drilling, the effect of which is 
meant to remain, but not the thing itself. Neither 
can any generation live in a dead past, or rival 
in its own masterpieces that past world to which 
those masterpieces were the outcomings of living 
power, the result of the concentrated life of the 
time. These exercises in prose or poetry are won- 
derful examples of training when well done, but 
nothing more. Nothing can be more beautiful as 



56 EDUCATION [Chap. 

feats of mental gymnastics than modern Latin verse 
and Greek iambics, and the cunning skill displayed 
in them ; but they are not poetry. They are only 
splendid specimens of training, and of power to 
make the mind perform its master's bidding; they 
cannot be deemed living; their excellence is imi- 
tative, not original, a workman's carving of dead 
wood, not his own soul flying on winged words ; they 
cannot be named in rivalry with Wordsworth, Tenny- 
son, and the poets of the day, who embody the 
thoughts of their own hearts and their own times, 
a bit more than nude statues and undraped women, 
imitations of Greek and Roman art, utterly removed 
from the deep feelings of modern life and its subtle 
spirit, have any claim to be more than specimens 
of training. A schoolmaster's Greek iambics and 
a statue of Yenus are precisely the same in rank, 
pretty exercises, but dead, unreal, unconnected with 
modern greatness, modern life, and modern belief. 
They are mere practice and stepping-stones, be- 
longing to a dead past, unrivalled in its own limited 
range, but only fitted now to drill into graceful 
shape the luxuriant power of higher thought and 
an intenser vision of truth. But of this more here- 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 57 

after. As training, however, it is not difficult to 
see what scope there is in these mental exercises. 
Fancy is quickened by the perpetual necessity of 
catching word and thought allusions, which touch 
at points of contact, though dissimilar, and strike 
out a spark of fire by contact. Imagination is 
called into play and ripened by the perpetual neces- 
sity of new arrangements of word and thought, and 
by the difficulty felt in transfusing the ideas of one 
world into shapes of another, which requires a 
careful analysis of the secret elements of power, 
so as to be able to reconstruct them. Memory, the 
beast of burden of the mind, is exercised and 
strengthened, and loaded with precious things ; for 
a successful scholar can, without books, in a short 
space of time, turn English poetry or prose into 
an admirable Greek or Latin version of poetry or 
prose. Quickness is engendered by the perpetual 
change and variety of verbal problems ; order still 
more so, for without order there can be no quick- 
ness. A good scholar must not only know his sub- 
jects, but have all his knowledge marshalled for 
use. That such a process, apart from any know- 
ledge derived, makes the mind strong, and from 



58 ED UCATIOX [Chap. 

the very beginning begins to do so, cannot be 
doubted ; but there are higher reasons still for the 
mighty ten years being so largely given up to 
the study of Greek and Latin. 

Speech is but the subtlest form of language, 
embodying beauty of thought and soul, the subtlest 
form of beauty. All things that strike the eye are 
languages also. The Creation is God speaking, as 
far as it goes ; it is part of the glory of God clothed 
in shape that we may be able to see it and to live. 
It is no metaphor, but the strictest truth, that " the 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
showeth His handywork." All that man makes is 
in like manner language. Pictures and sculpture 
speak through the eye, conveying the mind of one 
man to that of another; they tell a story. Archi- 
tecture also is a language. There can be nothing 
shaped by man, or clothed in outward form by him, 
which is not a part of man himself, of his wants, or 
his hopes, or his fears, or his loves, made visible. 
Whether the shape is noble or mean, be it picture, 
statue, building, or word, it is a portion, noble or 
mean, of man's inner life embodied. Speech is the 
most powerful and the most subtle of all these new 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 59 

bodies in which man multiplies his own image. But 
the unity of principle which runs through all spoken 
languages on account of unity of origin must be 
extended, and for the same reason will run through 
all languages spoken or visible. The same laws of 
perfection must hold good with all. This explains 
why a perfect education in Literature, which is the 
highest and subtlest of these bodies, fits the mind 
to receive and judge every other ; for the same 
nature pervades all, and only the instruments of 
the work are different. A highly educated mind 
conversant with great principles can better estimate 
the true value of Painting, Sculpture, and Archi- 
tecture, can better appreciate creation, than those 
who are only familiar with paints, and chisels, effects, 
and dexterity, and art. For instance, grossly im- 
moral paintings have been wonderful specimens of 
colouring, drawing and skill. Are we to admire 
these as great works? not surely until immorality, 
instead of purity and truth, is recognized as good 
and divine. The art and skill displayed is as no- 
thing compared with the vile thought. But we 
cannot stop here. If the true glory of man's lan- 
guage, spoken or visible, is the setting forth of high 



60 EDUCATION [Chap. 

thought in a fitting manner, then every picture or 
form which does not embody good thought is to be 
condemned ; and the more sacred the subject, the 
more to be condemned. A holy subject treated so 
as to make men worship the painter, instead of re- 
verence holiness and God, is an unworthy picture, 
whoever painted it, or however great the intellec- 
tual display may be. If Michael Angelo paints 
heaven, we ought to be led to worship God, not 
Michael Angelo. And this is the test of all good 
work. That work is wrong in principle which leads 
the observer to admire the worker instead of the 
truth he seems to be putting forth, unless indeed 
self- worship is good. Every work of man ought to 
give a higher idea to those who see it of the sub- 
ject treated of in the work. And no subject ought 
to be attempted which mortal hands lower by touch- 
ing. And so on in all languages, visible or spoken, 
the great principles that decide whether works are 
mean or noble are the same, and first require that 
the idea shall be pure and noble, however humble 
the subject may be, and next that it shall find fit- 
ting expression. But speech is the most perfect 
vehicle of thought and feeling. A thorough master 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 6 1 

in spoken language and its creations will not be at a 
loss in judging less complicated and less subtle forms. 
It will be necessary however to show why here 
too Greek and Latin claim so preeminent a throne 
as training. There are two things, as has been 
stated above, in all embodiments of thought to 
be considered, first the thought itself, secondly the 
shape in which the thought is brought into the 
world. The first belongs clearly to the inner life of 
man, the second is a matter of outward shape. If 
we look at living things again, we shall see all 
shape in them arises from inward life pushing out- 
wards and growing into shape, growing gracefully 
however varied the shape may be, because the life 
within makes the harmony. How strangely varied 
are the branches and leaves of a tree, yet how the 
life-centre ensures that the result shall be harmo- 
nious. This is the case wherever perfect life is at 
work, as in all creation, for instance, the outward 
shape is the result of the working of power from 
within. But when man begins working, his natural 
tendency is to take the material he finds, and to 
satisfy his eye and mind by producing a form ac- 
cording to his own judgment. But that which is 



62 EDUCATION [Chap. 

judged is inferior to the judge who judges. Man 
therefore looking on himself as superior to that 
which he works on, is compelled, as long as he does 
so look on himself, to produce a work which satis- 
fies this sense of superiority. The square house 
and the churchwarden's whitewash are the expres- 
sions of this desire in common life, and belong to 
a feeling deeply seated in human nature. This 
feeling, when carried out by the highest intellectual 
power, can only be satisfied by extreme perfection 
of outward form, which the eye and mind can 
master and delight in as completely fulfilling every 
desire for beauty of sharpe. And this beauty of 
shape is exceedingly fascinating, and, to a certain 
degree, necessary in all excellence. In the human 
face, for instance, although exquisite beauty of ex- 
pression will be adjudged the highest beauty by the 
best judges, yet even this cannot exist without a 
certain degree of shape, although there can be great 
beauty of shape without beauty of expression. And 
everybody can judge somewhat of beauty of form, 
whilst a few only can judge of beauty of expression. 
The natural tendency of man, then, is to delight in 
beautiful shape ; and this shaping power of the 



V.] AFD SCHOOL. 63 

mind, with its rules and its skill, is generally called 
Art. Now, in Art the Greeks especially were pre- 
eminent. Ancient art, as art, never will be rivalled, 
because there are only two ways in which man can 
work. He can either work, as has been said above, 
as man, as lord and master of the world in which 
he finds himself, and proceed as a master over a 
thing beneath him to shape and hew it into his 
own shapes. Or, he can look upon himself as an 
humble learner and pupil in a world full of higher 
power and glory, and so, following this law of di- 
vine life, be led onwards by it, until his works grow 
as living things in consequence of an inner life 
received and cherished. Naturally the first way, 
which is Art, belonged to the heathen. Self was all 
in all to him. Heaven was too far above him for 
knowledge, so he peopled heaven with beings like 
himself, only of larger size both in their virtues and 
vices. And earth was too far beneath him for him 
to link himself to it as a part of the same creation 
and a language of God, able to teach, and capable 
of being lovingly waited on. There were no voices 
for him out of the deeps ; so he cried aloud, and 
listened for the echo of his own voice, and deified 



64 EDUCATION [Chap. 

it. There was no communion for him in river, 
stream, or forest, so he peopled the desert with 
images of himself, and talked with his own shadow. 
He did not care for anything beautiful in earth, or 
sky, or sea, excepting so far as it contributed to his 
comfort. Hence it comes to pass, that in the whole 
range of heathen literature, wonderful as it is in 
intellect and symmetry, there is not one passage 
that rises above a comfortable sense of the beauty 
of nature, and there are many that show abhorrence 
of natural beauty, or imply total ignorance of it, 
apart from comfort. This concentration on self, this 
indifference to creation, is only brought out in 
stronger contrast by the fragments of primeval 
truth found in the fables and early traditions, which 
during the renowned and intellectual period of their 
national pride are like stray lenses of telescopes in 
the hands of savages ; once parts of instruments that 
brought other worlds within ken, but broken, un- 
connected, useless, mere glittering toys, though still 
telling to the practised eye that they belonged to 
men of other hearts, and once had a divine use. So 
the heathen self-contained looked down from his 
intellectual throne on the outside of the world, and 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 65 

saw only the outside, for all things worth knowing 
and loving must be looked up to, not down upon ; 
their power was an outside power, a power to shape — 
Art; for Art is the shaping power, and Art they 
worshipped; and they who sincerely worship get 
whatever is to be got from their worship ; so in Art 
they are, and ever will be, preeminent. The Greek 
temple to the eye embodies this fact, simple, severe, 
eye-satisfying, " absolutely made, and pure form, 
nakedly displayed 1 ," but plain, inexpressive, a grand 
outside. So also of their statuary. For the skilful 
disposal of drapery alone gives expression to the 
human form ; without it the body by itself at best is 
beautiful shape, incapable of any high ministry, 
with the Curse of the Fall upon it, powerless to ele- 
vate or inspire noble thoughts; since mere shape, 
apart from messages of feeling, purity and holiness, 
is a poor thing. And as if to mark this as a divine 
law, it may be observed that all expressive life-reve- 
lation is expressive by sacrificing somewhat of per- 
fect symmetry and form. For symmetry is repose, 
expression motion; two opposing principles, the 
still outline of death, and the rippling play of life; 

1 dough's Poems. 



66 ED UCA TWIST [Chap. 

a body and a soul ; the soul-power making itself felt 
by incessant action on the bodily vessel, so that a 
fair face glows and gleams with changeful beauty, 
an inward sun perpetually sending light and shadow 
up from luminous depths. And bright or sad in- 
fluences from the outer world are mirrored on the 
storied surface till all sense of mere shape is lost in 
the absorbing presence of an invisible world of life 
floating into being, coming and going at its own 
will, a breathing gladness, a magic splendour com- 
posed of thousand thousand influences, calm, or 
sweet, or strong, but never without gleams of 
motion, like sound, as owing existence to the de- 
stroying of stillness, a beauty born of rippling waves, 
and dying when they die. Such is the revelation of 
life in and through the body, but it is not the body 
itself, not shape ; and the shaping power is human. 

Now this human art-power is displayed still 
more in heathen literature than in their eye- 
languages. Their literature is perfect art; but as 
they never linked human nature to heaven, or 
studied it together with creation as a thing from 
God, they are absolutely without the two great 
living sources of wisdom : first, created things have 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 6 J 

no analogies or mysteries for them; secondly, all 
subtle and sweet emotions are denied them. The 
first of these sources was opened for mankind when 
Christ spake the Parables. This voice altered the 
whole way of looking on the world and man, and 
breathed a new spirit of infinite variety into it, 
making all creation a great Hieroglyphic, the secret 
key to which is in man's heart, so that as we pass 
on our way, leaf, flower, and stone, the mightiest 
elements, the smallest thing that is, may suddenly 
speak to us of truths unknown, and open worlds of 
thought and life. The second came with that law 
of love which counts no living creature common or 
unclean, looking to spirit not to shape, and not re- 
quiring size for power or beauty. Hence it comes 
to pass that a modern play of Shakspere takes in 
all life, even grotesque life, with perfect propriety, 
but a Greek play cannot do this. It must carve the 
subject into a form of severest grandeur, like the 
temple, a cold, severe, and loveless majesty of form ; 
and the words must be of the same precise charac- 
ter, but it is devoid of sweet and subtle life; nothing" 
that men count little, nothing unshapely, might be 
admitted there ; all must be clear and clean-cut lines. 

5—2 



63 EDUCATION [Chap. 

How absolutely this was the case may be gathered 
from the fact that these plays were acted to an 
immense audience, in the open air, by men raised 
on high-heeled boots to be unreal (heroic it was 
called). Their faces were masked to be of faultless 
features, and larger than human; all expression 
was sacrificed to this. And the play was shouted 
out at the top of the voice from these masks. It 
is evident how entirely the effect of such plays must 
have depended on great and strong action and pas- 
sion, however it might be hewn into shape, and on 
striking situations. It is equally evident that all 
expressive change of feature was excluded by the 
mask; and all gentle, and subtle, and fine emotion, 
by the necessity of having to shout out in the open 
air. Imagine the condition of a bashful man in a 
large company having to bawl out all his feelings 
to a deaf person, and you have a lively picture of 
the situation of Greek Tragedy. 

Volumes might be written without illustrating 
the greatness of heathen art, and its absence of 
inner life, so much as these facts. The heathen 
believed in Art, and worshipped Art, and therefore 
in Art will be unrivalled. For perfection is only 



Y.] AND SCHOOL. 69 

attainable by a thorough living belief in that 
which is done. The living belief of the generation 
and age being fused in its intensest reality into 
the being of some gifted man, and given forth by 
him to the world. And as no Christian can wor- 
ship the shaping power, Art, with the intensity of 
heathen worship, no Christian will rival them in 
Art. A heathenised Christian is a bad heathen. 
In Christian works, the life within reverently 
fostered, the feelings chastened into truth, grow 
and take, shape as living things, depending for 
their harmony on the goodness of the life that 
animates the work. So they grow into the com- 
pleteness of Christian literature, architecture, paint- 
ing, and statuary. If any other principle is fol- 
lowed, the work is dead. The harmony of Christian 
work depends on one life, as in a tree, as in crea- 
tion, making apparent discords harmonious. The 
harmony of heathen work depends on outward shape 
and fair proportions. Perfect Art then, is their pro- 
vince, as distinct from subtle feeling, from the deeps 
of spiritual power, the beauty of holiness, the tender- 
ness of modesty, the purity of love, the gentle dig- 
nity of suffering, and the glory of patient weakness. 



70 EDUCATION [Chap. 

But Art, albeit narrow in range and deficient 
in depth, is matchless for severe perfection of 
form ; and in training, this is the thing wanted. 
For though the highest powers of heart and head 
in happy combination are beyond the icach of hu- 
man handling, everybody requires in our present 
state of existence to be taught not to do or say un- 
gainly and offensive things, or anything in an un- 
gainly or offensive way; and this is the work of Art. 
No one is "so pure of heart, so sound of head 1 " as 
to be able to dispense with those rules and that 
Art-training which in all lower things correct na- 
tural shortcomings. This may be compared to the 
distinction between a Christian and a gentleman. 
A person perfect in Christian life, did such exist, 
would of necessity be a perfect gentleman : because 
it would not be possible for him to say or do any- 
thing which could offend another's eye or ear, on 
account of the inward life. But as life is not thus 
perfect, the world has noted the main rules of out- 
ward behaviour, and society exacts the observance 
of these external forms at all events, and calls those 
who observe them, gentlemen. 

1 Tennyson, In Memoriam. 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 7 1 

This then is a sort of substitute for perfect life ; 
and in this chequered world, where the inner life is 
not perfect, people prefer the outer forms which can 
be judged and seen, even when the inner life is 
wanting, to the inner life which is only partially per- 
fect, when the outer form is wanting. Art-training 
is of this useful character, that it compels all its 
pupils to conform outwardly to the lower observances 
of perfect life, whether they have the life itself or not, 
and, by so doing, prevents very much that is unseemly. 
Art, moreover, is capable of being taught, which 
greatly concerns the subject of education. And the 
masterpieces of ancient Art are wonderful and excel- 
lent models, as far as they go, of the shape in which 
thought should be cast. And though in range they 
fall infinitely short of the best modern writings, 
they utterly condemn all false ornament, all tinsel, 
all ungraceful and unshapely work, and are perfect 
standards of criticism in everything that belongs to 
mere perfect form. The laws which regulate ex- 
ternal beauty can only be thoroughly known through 
them. On this account, then, the great Greek and 
Latin writers are the perfection of training for the 
young; for this is preeminently a training power. 



72 E DUG ATI OX [Chap. 

Without such a training it is not possible to form 
an equally correct judgment on the language-works 
of man; neither is it easy to get from any other 
quarter Art-rules capable of being adapted to so 
many circumstances of common everyday life and 
practice. The highest will never cease admiring 
them, and learning from them. No testimony is 
needed to inspirit those who once are far enough 
advanced to appreciate their excellence. But the 
lowest also who never sail in the ship, who do not 
get beyond the sawdust of the timber-cutting, never- 
theless, dry as their work may have been, do attain 
to some constructive power, some slight insight into 
the excellence of the completed work, in addition to 
strengthening their muscles for a useful life. As an 
Art-training the study of the Classics has no rival. 

But as knowledge, the Classics also hold a pecu- 
liar and equally preeminent place. Whatever may 
be the reason assigned, the history of the world 
as a fact, is divided by a great gulf, into the two 
periods before the birth, and after the birth, of 
Christ. This is no artificial arrangement, but an 
obvious truism. An epoch closed with the Koman 
Empire, and after a period of what seems at first 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 73 

sight chaotic confusion, but which was in reality 
the mixing of elements for a new creation, the 
new world in which we now are living gradually 
took shape and rose into existence. There is no 
similarity in the habits, knowledge, literature, feel- 
ings, political or private life of men as they now 
are, and men as they were then, excepting that 
general likeness that there must be between human 
beings as such. All the records of the first period 
that are trustworthy are written in Greek and Latin. 
This and nothing else bridges over the gulf. It 
is a positive fact, that if Greek and Latin were 
taken away, with the exception of the Hebrew 
Bible we should know nothing whatever of the 
feelings, habits, thoughts, intellect, morality, or lives 
of the great nations of the ancient world, excepting 
from buildings, pictures, and sculpture, until we 
come to the second period long after the birth of 
Christ. It follows from this that not to know 
Greek and Latin is to be reduced to the necessity 
of taking at second-hand all the best information 
about the early world and heathenism. But this 
is a very serious thing. Historians are men, and 
have theories of their own, which are all the better 



74 EDUCATION [Chap. 

■when avowed. A wise man's opinion is a good 
thing, but an intellectual man's attempt to per- 
suade the unwary that he is uttering absolute truth 
is very much the contrary. Well, historians are men, 
and modern historians viewing the past from a stand- 
ing point of modern thought, very often transmit 
an utterly perverted image to the unlearned. Not 
that this is intentional, or in some degree their fault 
at all. The difference between the two states is so 
great, that it is not possible to make this felt, and the 
writers themselves seldom appear to realize the fact. 
Heathenism in its perfect form has perished 
from the earth, and left only dregs. Heathens 
can never be the foremost nations of the world 
again. The combination of intense intellectual 
power and activity, with great moral debasement, 
and just a little salt of earlier simplicity and 
tradition, fast growing effete, but not yet quite 
dead, is a spectacle the world has seen for the 
last time. We have lost the power of reproducing 
it as a picture even, and we dare not try to do 
so even in a superficial way. The first chapter 
of St Paul's Epistle to the Eomans is the nearest 
approach to such knowledge that can be endured. 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 75 

Yet, historians steeped in modern ideas, and car- 
ried away by the great intellectual power of the 
times they treat of, give no notion of this de- 
pravity, and depict the habits of the ancients as 
worthy of being placed in comparison with modern 
life. Whereas the earlier history of both Greece 
and Rome is obviously the progress of simple tribes 
rising into greatness through some moral virtue 
as yet uncorrupted, and the later history is that 
of polished barbarians. No one dares picture to 
himself, or to realize in his mind's eye, the awful 
state of common social life in the glorious periods 
of Greece and Rome. No one ever dares try to 
do so. It is easy to slide over the smooth surface 
of their literary and intellectual works without 
ever looking into the deeps of iniquity beneath, 
or bringing it before the mind as real. The above 
assertions seem strong, but every scholar who can 
read Plato, the Tragedians, Aristophanes, Theocritus, 
Cicero, Juvenal, the Poets, must, if he calmly faces 
the assertion, and weighs it, admit its truth, and 
with it admit that no history leads the unlearned 
to suspect it in the least. The direct contrary 
would be nearer the truth. What proof, it may 



7 6 EDUCATION- [Chap. 

be asked, can be given of this ? For many reasons, 
citing instances of depravity is out of the question, 
not least, perhaps, that in every age instances of the 
grossest depravity may be produced ; the whole ques- 
tion turning on the way in which the depraved acts 
were done and received, rather than on the acts 
themselves. For instance, nothing can be more cold- 
blooded than the cruelty that introduced the word 
" burking " into the English language ; yet few 
would take this as a sign of the age; whereas the 
practice at Sparta of secretly sending out their 
noblest to assassinate the Helots when they became 
afraid of their numbers, is a sign of the age. But 
it would be impossible in an ordinary book to 
enter into each question in this way. Therefore, 
although some instances will be quoted, it is not 
the vices of the heathen world that shall be brought 
into court to prove that they are on one side of an 
impassable chasm and we on the other, but their 
godless excellences. There is the proof. To begin 
with personal bravery, the most animal and savage 
of so-called virtues, which may have its origin in 
brutish insensibility, in bodily strength, in vanity, 
in shame and fear of punishment even, in a sense 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 77 

of misery, ignorance, or despair, and which appears 
in some degree to be inseparable from well-grown 
and active manhood. Look at the historical boasts 
of Thermopylae for instance, the perpetual paean 
sung over those Greeks who defended the pass. 
They were brave men, doubtless ; but almost every 
modern campaign can parallel their bravery. Lord 
Wellington would not have needed to call for volun- 
teers on such a service, and the next campaign 
would at once have taken away the singular glory 
of the achievement. It was the rarity of true 
bravery that made the things that were done so 
wonderful, and enshrined them in national song, 
and made them the watchwords of national glory. 

It is with no desire to do injustice to brave men 
that these words are written ; they were the noblest 
of the heathen world, all honour that is true be 
theirs. But Christianity, or that something which 
some believe in instead, has so raised the meanest, 
and those who are least affected by it — the general 
level is so raised — that the common life of these 
times will furnish daily instances that rival the 
solitary stars in the heathen night. It is the differ- 
ence between daylight and night, however starry. 



78 EDUCATION [Chap. 

Truth is not served by concealing this. But what 
is war with its glitter and its publicity, with its 
thousand eyes on men, able from shame to make 
even the coward appear brave, compared to the 
quiet heroism which suffers without spectators, or 
with few, without excitement, or any outward sup- 
port ? No heathen history can parallel the loss 
of the Birkenhead with its 470 men quietly standing 
silent and uncomplaining to die, whilst the women 
and children were being saved, firing their last salute 
as the deep was about to close over them. Nay, 
ancient history would not even have valued the little 
Dutch boy, who, having been told that all was lost 
unless the first leak in a dyke was stopped at once, 
hearing the trickling water as he ran home from 
school, having nothing else to stop it, thrust in his 
little hand, and through the long long night crying 
and wailing in his pain, stayed there till they found 
him. All the world for centuries has been told 
to admire a Lucretia, when our newspapers, alas ! 
too often tell us of some poor girl far more nobly 
chaste, and no one thinks it strange. Nor is it. 
The very fact that it was so strange, so glorified, 
proves the immorality of common life. Stars only 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 79 

shine in night. The daylight puts out stars. Can 
any one really picture in his mind's eye the Coli- 
seum, filled with 87,000 of earth's noblest, filled 
with the masters of the world gathered together 
to see men and beasts murder and mangle each 
other? And if it is hard to believe this of men, 
how much harder to imagine delicate and high- 
bred ladies — ladies nurtured in all the refinements 
of most intellectual civilization — crowding to such a 
shambles as their joy; making it their amusement 
to see brave men die, or, worse still, to see some 
old man, as Ignatius, the aged Bishop of the Eastern 
Church, torn by the lions, or, perhaps women, as 
well born and as fair as themselves, set in the midst 
of that pitiless circle, for beasts to claw and growl 
over. What were the homes which sent such ladies 
out, the conversation, the daily life, and feelings, 
when the sweetness of womanhood took delight in 
such sights? Or a little before this. Let any one 
dream that he is walking in beautiful gardens by 
a palace more gorgeous than has ever been seen 
since, on some fresh summer evening, by the river 
so renowned in story, in Rome, imperial Rome, 
whilst throngs of lords and ladies saunter there, 



80 EDUCATION [Chap. 

and pleasant laughter rings, and all the gossip of 
the day is interchanged with smile and nod. But 
all the while those gardens are lighted by men and 
women, smeared with pitch, burning alive, by Nero's 
order, for his people's pleasure, as they saunter up 
and down ; or are enlivened by mock hunting, 
where living men are the prey, wrapped in the 
skins of beasts, and torn to death in grim reality 
by hounds. And Tacitus the historian, who tells 
us this, a truly great man, whose works none can 
read without deep interest and admiration for him. 
does not think, it worth his while to blame such 
cruelty. Yet single facts, however horrible, tell no- 
thing. It is the sense that gradually creeps over 
those who attempt to realize the heathen past, how- 
ever faintly, that the main current of life was cruelty 
and lust, corrupt and mean, in spite of exceptional 
cases, and those more in word than deed; in spite 
of the wonderful intellectual power displayed, which 
like a wintry sun dazzles without giving warmth. 
And so historians take their mirrors and catch the 
glitter, and never heed the corruption it gilds. But 
even this knowledge, which obviously belongs to 
the more advanced student only, is an invaluable 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 8 1 

gain, though, at first sight, we should scarcely think 
it so, to the Christian ; enabling him to form a 
truer estimate of mankind and the progress of the 
human race. Without it he would be at the mercy 
of every confident assertion about the advance of 
man towards perfection, and, seeing that man is 
advancing now, would easily be led to believe that 
he was doing so then by his own powers. Historians 
take their views too often from a few of the best 
heathen writings, and those, too, written by men 
who practised very little of what they wrote, and 
then tacitly compare these writings with the facts 
of the worst common life of their own day. The 
scholar, at all events, has his facts too. And wher- 
ever history, as it too often does, contrasts the best 
writings of the best men of the past, with the actual 
state of the bad in present times, he can at least 
contrast writings with writings, and men with men. 
What a glorious place earth would be, if the New 
Testament, and the holiest and wisest writings, 
could be taken as a picture of our own times. 
But, if this cannot be, why should this fallacy be 
given us as a true picture of the heathen past ? 

A true picture no one dares give, or can; but in 

6 



82 EDUCATION [Chap. 

making this statement it must not be forgotten, 
that, as far as corrupting influence on the mind is 
concerned, the Classics are comparatively innocuous. 
The fact of the dead language gives an unreality to 
much that is narrated, and a conventional dress to 
all, so that no reader, unless he searches out and 
cherishes the evil, is in danger of pollution; and 
who can save those who do ? Our youth would 
not escape the knowledge of evil things by sup- 
pressing the Classics. Modern literature, both Eng- 
lish and French, has also its poison wells out of 
which they would drink, and deadlier poison too ; 
to say nothing of the natural corruption of man, 
which is, alas, in every age the same. Those who 
choose evil can get evil. Poison cannot be shut up. 
True medicine puts the body in a state to resist the 
action of noxious agents ; it cannot annihilate the 
agents themselves. At all events, a study of the 
Classics, if it contains the poison, contains also the 
antidote, and gives a good man power against vice, 
and is a necessity for every one who would know the 
history of man, or escape surface fictions about it. 

But above all, the New Testament is written 
in Greek. No religious nation can give up Greek. 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 83 

There is one more point connected with the 
study of the Classical languages, which, although to 
a certain extent anticipated under the last head, is 
nevertheless somewhat distinct. The Classics reveal 
to us the philosophic history of man as well as his 
social history. No one is capable of forming any 
judgment on human progress who is cut off from 
the knowledge of what took place in the first epoch 
of the world. During the first epoch of the world, 
man was on the whole left to himself. The second 
epoch opens with a claim of God having interposed, 
and in the fulness of time, when man's efforts had 
failed, reconstructed the world on a new basis. This 
affirms that the first and second epochs differ not 
only in degree but in hind. It is an assertion 
that the human agencies of the first period failed, 
and the divine humanity of the second period suc- 
ceeded. Ignorance of the Classical languages implies 
inability to test this important question. 

The first epoch rests its claims on the human agen- 
cies of intellectual and physical power. The second 
on a new fountain of life from God, a change in 
nature, a new feeling of love for things before un- 
loveable, and hatred for things before esteemed. The 

6—2 



84 EDUCATION [Chap. 

life of the old world accordingly ought to be, and 
is ; a record of the development of intellectual and 
physical power, and the attempts of such power to 
unite mankind ; and — the failure of those attempts. 
There will be progress therefore in arts and civili- 
sation, and retrogression on the whole in true great- 
ness and goodness. The heathen histories show us 
this. In them we observe with wonder how nation 
after nation rose into power, constructed some sort 
of colossal empire, and — perished. In the philoso- 
phic and poetical works we see the intellectual acute- 
n ess and unsurpassable mental strength of the heathen 
champions of thought. However truly mankind may 
now pride themselves on the triumphant discove- 
ries of modern times, it would be utterly false to 
assume from this that the intellectual power dis- 
played is greater than of old. Who that is not 
blind will boast of surpassing in transcendent intel- 
lect Plato and Aristotle, and name after name of 
ancient glory ? Who will match them ? 

The triumphant riches of Christian life and 
thought are not the result of greater intellect, but 
of a new principle. But if it had been possible 
for man to say truly that intellectual power had 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 85 

not done its utmost before anything else was tried, 
man's pride would have made redemption impos- 
sible. Even now this is too much the case, with 
the example ever present of the narrow range, the 
ineffectual efforts, and finally the hopeless stagna- 
tion that was resulting from the human intellect 
in its highest state of perfection hammering at the 
outside of the world. The following quotation from 
an article in Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. xcin., page 
498, puts the last fact in a striking light : " Let us 
carry ourselves back in imagination," says the wri- 
ter, "to the state of philosophy which existed at 
Athens in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, and 
which Mr Merivale has so pleasantly described in 
his last volume of The History of the Romans 
under the Empire, Philosophy seems to have ccme 
to a dead-lock. On every side it was tacitly ac- 
knowledged that the limits of each specific dogma 
had been reached; that all were true enough to be 
taught, and none so true as to be exclusively believed. 
Their several professors lived together in conventional 
antagonism, and in real good fellow 'ship. Academics 
and Peripatetics, Stoics and Epicureans, Pyrrhonists 
and Cynics, disputed together or thundered one 



86 EDUCATION [Chap. 

against the other through the morning, and bathed, 
dined, and joked together with easy indifference 
through the evening!' This is a true picture of the 
state of the civilized world. All things were at a 
dead-lock equally. The intellectual powers of man- 
kind, unless a new principle of applying them was 
given, had done their best and — come to a dead- 
lock. And this dining, and joking, and disputing 
might be well enough as long as the old imperial 
shadow of Roman power lasted. But when the 
flood of Barbarians, already at the door, burst in, 
what had this dead indifference and exhausted in- 
tellect to bring to bear against them? History 
gives the answer. Nothing. They were swept 
away, and out of the flood by degrees emerged the 
great life-power, Christianity, triumphant. But the 
old intellect-empire perished, and had that been 
all, mankind would have sunk lower and lower 
into a common ruin, for it had done its best — and 
been found wanting. 

"We must not lose sight of the long darkness 
in which heathen wisdom set, whilst as yet Christ- 
ian life had not risen on the world in light, and 
grown into its youth of power. But the new prin- 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 87 

ciple of life by degrees conquered the brute force 
that overthrew the old dead heathen intellect- 
power, and having in its hands the keys of cre- 
ation and its power, the knowledge why things 
are, and for what purpose, gradually after having 
subdued man's heart, set him to employ his strength 
intellectually, and bodily, in a right way. And out 
of this has grown the modern world, with all its 
discoveries, its science, its marvellous progress, and 
the change of thought and feeling, that makes it 
impossible to bring home entirely to the mind what 
earth has been without it. All this knowledge of 
the past is dead and lost, unless the Classics are 
generally studied. And that most important of all 
truths, the destiny of man himself and his early 
history, would remain in the hands of a few, who, 
as is always the case with monopolies, would take 
great liberties in preparing the article they sub- 
mitted to the uninitiated, or would be at the mercy 
of the assertions of the ignorant, or the guesses 
of philosophers. 

We cannot then cast down the great bridge 
between the old world and the new, this won- 
drous combination of training and knowledge, this 



C8 E DUG AT I OX [Chap. 

perfect arch of human intellect, without cutting 
ourselves off from the past, and destroying in no 
.slight degree our place in the great world-plan. 
It is plain that ignorance of what man could do 
by himself, ignorance of the marvellous intellectual 
force he could develop, and of the pitiful result 
morally, and its deadly end politically and socially, 
is nothing less than a dropping the clue of crea- 
tion, and becoming totally unable to judge the 
present state of the world. Whilst at the same 
time these languages, which are the means by which 
all this is done, form the best training apart from 
any higher considerations. 

These are weighty reasons why the mighty ten 
years should be devoted in a great degree to these 
studies ; and the masters of time will do well to 
pause before they substitute lighter gains, and more 
seductive appearances, for this wonderful exercise 
of mental power, this mine of wealth, this world- 
wide bridge, this training, which sets a man in the 
midst of the world, strong and active, able to cope 
with all comers, whether they steal up from be- 
hind out of the half-seen spectral past, or meet 
him in dread reality in his way towards the un- 



V.] AND SCHOOL. 89 

known future. Whatever a person unskilled in 
the Classics may know, he is ignorant of the history 
of man, and unable, in spite of science, in spite of 
acuteness, in spite of seeming knowledge, fairly to 
estimate the world as it is, or assign to the dis- 
coveries of each generation their proper place in 
the world's history. 

Volumes might be written on any and all of 
the points raised in this chapter, to elucidate and 
prove them, but enough has been done if the first 
principles have been stated with any clearness. 
Enough at least to show that no great nation can 
let the study of the Classics fall into disrepute, 
as the training study of its upper classes, and re- 
main a great nation long: enough to show that 
it is no superstition which makes it part of a 
gentleman's education in England to know them, 
and gives honour well deserved to those who know 
thern well, and use them wisely. 

The causes of national greatness lie deep, but 
whatever a great nation can spare, it cannot afford 
to unmoor itself from the past. The study of Greek 
and Latin is a national question. All are inter- 
ested in its being carried on in the best way. 



90 EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. Y. 

Past generations have done their work nobly, may 
our posterity be able to look back on us without 
scorn. The Old Foundations, in their spirit and 
intentions, in their liberality and princely bounty, 
are. worthy of their object, great gifts of no mean- 
hearted men. There seems no hope of seeing their 
like again, but to use them well is not beyond the 
power of all who teach and all who learn, and most 
of all, of those who trust their children to them. 
England is interested in this question. 

Nothing need be said about the study of Mathe- 
matics, their obvious utility secures the verdict even 
of the most superficial in their favour. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EXTEA SUBJECTS. 

In all things a man must beware of so conforming himself, as 
to crush his nature, and forego the purpose of his being. We must 
look to other standards than what men may say or think. We must 
not abjectly bow down before rules and usages ; but must refer to 
principles and purposes. In few words, we must think, not whom 
we are following, but what we are doing. If not, why are we gifted 
with individual life at all? Uniformity does not consist with the 
higher forms of vitality. Even the leaves of the same tree are said 
to differ, each one from all the rest. And can it be good for the soul 
of a man "with a biography of its own like to no one else's," to 
subject itself without thought to the opinions and ways of others : 
not to grow into symmetry, but to be moulded down into con- 
formity ? 

Conformity. Friends in Council. 

The fact that the Universities give almost all 
their great prizes to the successful scholars in Clas- 
sics and Mathematics, determines at once the posi- 
tion of Classics and Mathematics in all the great 
schools that depend for their success on the judg- 
ment of the Universities. That this position is a 



92 EDUCATION [Chap. 

right one has, Ave hope, been proved. Bat, right 
or wrong, as long as the Universities do this, bo 
long the schools must also do it. And any scheme 
for incorporating other subjects with the regular 
school-work must be abortive, for the folio wing- 
reasons : — Many boys, and those too the best in 
the school, will look upon the time spent in en- 
forcing some one modern subject on all, as so much 
time lost to their real work, and, in consequence, 
will make the classes drag heavily, to the great 
detriment of those who really are in want of it. 
In other words, make French, or German, or Draw- 
ing, or Natural Science, &c, compulsory on all the 
boys, and the honest truth is, the boys who really 
wish to learn the subject are greatly retarded by 
the large number who do not ; at the same time 
that the large number who do not, are really paying 
in a great degree for the lessons of those who do. 
That is, those who really want to learn get a worse 
article at a lower rate, whilst both the time and 
money of very many is wasted. Though certainly 
a good deal of show can be made at a small cost 
in this way, and a captivating appearance of libe- 
rality kept up. 



VI.] AND SCHOOL. 93 

But let it be assumed, for argument's sake, 
that it is desirable to incorporate some one mo- 
dern language or science with the regular school- 
work. There are many subjects, and many par- 
tizans of each. On what principle is the choice 
to be made? If the principle is to be an educa- 
tional one, in the case of a language, the literary 
merits of the language, and perhaps also the time 
required to master it, will be the only grounds of 
choice. And if the principle is not to be an edu- 
cational one, there can be no agreement arrived 
at. But the educational principle at once excludes 
French, the subject which would probably poll most 
votes, because it is wanted principally for conver- 
sational purposes, not for its literature, and is sin- 
gularly unfitted, by its subtle pronunciation, for 
class-work, as a task forced on unwilling learners. 
But why should a language at all be chosen ? 
Music, Drawing, Science, and all the useful know- 
ledge subjects, put in strong claims; all are very 
desirable acquisitions, some cannot be learned ex- 
cepting by long and early practice. What is to 
be done? There is one unpalatable answer, it is 
the business of school to do the main training, of 



94 EDUCATION [Chap. 

home, to add what more is desirable. But this 
is only half an answer. It is, we willingly admit, 
part of the main training to provide for all real 
wants of a good education ; the present discussion 
is, can this be done by incorporating any subject 
in the school-work, and making it compulsory on 
all? The question of time puts these subjects, as 
main training, absolutely out of court. Boys are 
young, and the working hours in the day are not 
many in number. These various subjects may be 
in themselves very desirable ; but are they desirable 
for the school-boy ? A sack of gold is a good thing, 
but how many of my readers will carry it on their 
backs ten miles, to have it at the end. Yet wretched 
little boys are made to stagger along under like 
burdens. Gold is good, but life is better. 

If general knowledge is the object, then by all 
means do away with Classics and Mathematics, and 
begin sand- washing with might and main. If pro- 
fessional education is the object, then by all means 
establish schools to give it. But they cannot be the 
great schools that train for the Universities, for they 
go on the principle that education is the object. It 
is true a modern department is supposed to do 



VI.] AND SCHOOL. 95 

this. If it really does so, then there are two rival 
schools at work side by side, and it may fairly be 
considered an open question, whether the two would 
not do their work better apart. 

The great fact that a day contains a limited 
number of hours seems scarcely to have been ad- 
mitted into the discussion at all ; and its corollary, 
that any subject imposed on the whole school limits 
the choice of those who do not absolutely want it, 
by the whole time it takes up, and by taking 
time and money, prevents time and money being 
spent in more favourite pursuits. No doubt, if a 
day was unlimited, and men neither ate, slept, 
or died, all these languages and studies would be 
excellent. But as, unfortunately, these three in- 
conveniences of eating, sleeping, and dying, pertain 
to all mankind, and a fourth, of getting tired also, 
a choice amongst the many bundles of hay be- 
comes necessary. Some indignant modernist may 
perhaps think this argument casts a slur on gene- 
ral knowledge. Far from it. No knowledge is 
to be despised, but a pretence of knowledge is. 
And a practical examination into what can be 
done and what cannot be done is very necessary. 



9 6 EDUCATION [Chap. 

As long as training is the true object of education, 
and the Universities demand, and the great schools 
teach, Classics and Mathematics, as being the best 
training for the mind, most of the available time 
is at once disposed of, and the debateable ground 
is narrowed considerably. The question at once 
assumes this form. There is but a small amount 
of time to be disposed of, therefore no modern 
subject, out of the numbers that it is desirable dif- 
ferent boys should learn, can be imposed on the 
whole school. And, this being granted, how can this 
margin of time be employed to the best advan- 
tage ? The object in view is to give every boy the 
best opportunity of following his own tastes, and cul- 
tivating his own intellectual fancies. It is necessary 
for this that there should be a good choice of subjects. 
And these two things support one another. 

To begin, then, with the case of those boys 
who are being trained for the University. These 
boys are working steadily at Classics and Mathe- 
matics as their real and main work. With the 
cleverer boys this will mean that all the time that 
can be spent in studies so severe is spent in them. 
But neither boys nor men can spend many hours 



VI.] AND SCHOOL. 97 

in acquiring new and severe kinds of knowledge. 
There will be much leisure time in reality, when 
they can neither play hard nor read hard, which 
ought to be employed. But it can only be employed 
usefully in some less severe pursuit than the main 
work. And a less severe pursuit means something 
a boy on the whole likes and chooses, and which 
is not enforced with the same rigid compulsion as 
the harder work is. But to make a wide choice 
of subjects for leisure time possible, it is necessary 
that the compulsory subjects should be few, as 
otherwise neither time nor money allows much 
choice. And every parent or boy ought to be at 
liberty to choose, which cannot be the case if time 
or money is already pre-occupied. And there will 
not be funds in many schools sufficient to main- 
tain the several branches of study, unless the 
choice is really free. For of course as soon as a 
subject does not pay its expenses it will drop 
through. Viewing these subjects however, as the 
proper way of employing the margin of time which 
cannot be spent in hard work or hard play, every 
boy ought to be made to have one of them going. 
The main work will certainly gain by such a plan ; 

7 



98 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

partly because the proper employment of time be- 
longs to right training, and is therefore a branch of 
the main work, and partly because it is not possible 
to acquire any knowledge which shall not in some 
degree help the acquiring of any other kind of 
knowledge. Learning how to use the mind well in one 
thing does tend to make the mind fit for use in 
another, and also very often, by analogies and actual 
information, makes very unlike things assist each 
other. Hard subjects also seem to require supple- 
mentary exercises, just as in the body severe labour 
in one set of muscles requires the others to be ex- 
ercised, in order to restore the balance. And dif- 
ference of occupation, not idleness, is the best rest 
for the strong, both in body and mind, after any 
toil that is not excessive. But this choice of easier 
work is of infinitely greater importance to the 
backward and stupid boy than to his better-trained 
companion. With him it becomes a necessity for 
healthy life. 

The power of training a dull and ignorant mind, 
neglected in childhood, sprung perhaps from a neg- 
lected race, and with nothing done by the time a 
boy has reached thirteen or fourteen years of age, 



VI.] AND SCHOOL. 99 

is very limited. Then it becomes important to fur- 
nish as much general knowledge as possible, in the 
hope that, even if the subjects as a whole are not 
understood, a number of isolated facts may be 
picked up, which are better than nothing. There 
must on this account be a large choice of subjects 
in a good school, to satisfy the wants of various 
minds, or many will really get no knowledge at all, 
and very little training. 

Now this is no mere intellectual question. If 
a considerable number of boys in a school, and 
those too the least capable of finding interests for 
themselves, are merely set in a treadmill ; if all 
their intellectual work is, in fact, one long dull 
punishment, where they get nothing but discredit, 
and are hopeless of excelling and attaining honour, 
this must fatally injure their school-life. It is 
really useless for many boys -to expect to be able 
to attain to any great proficiency in Greek and 
Latin; they have been neglected too long. They 
can never hope to sail in the great language-ship 
and see the world; they never get beyond sawing 
the planks, and the sawdust of it. What then 
must their life be, if they have nothing else to 

7-2 



1 00 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

do ? How can they have any feeling of the school 
being a place for them when they are simply no 
better than outcasts there? In the games, per- 
haps, they attain some position amongst their fel- 
lows ; but this only makes the matter worse in many 
schools, and sets the two phases of their life in 
stronger and more painful contrast. When self- 
respect is lost, all power for good is lost with it. 
And as far as the school-life and training, so called, 
is concerned, self-respect is lost when perpetual and 
certain disgrace is a boy's lot in the only intellectual 
field open to him. Hence the constant and unne- 
cessary antagonism between games and work, boys 
and masters. If a boy finds his only solid position 
in games, what wonder that he avenges himself on 
the work — reproaches his masters by unduly ex- 
alting games, and, alas, too often by making vicious 
indulgence his claim to manliness and power, be- 
cause masters forbid it. At least where masters are 
an identical term with convict-gang task-work this 
adds to the flavour. This state of things must be, 
as long as a proper standing-point is not found for 
each boy in the intellectual life of the school. This 
is what boys are sent to school for, and it ought to be 



VI.] AND SCHOOL. 10 1 

found for them ; gross evil will always be the result 
if it is not. But a choice of subjects gives this. 
In Music, French, German, Drawing, and various 
branches of Natural Science, such as Botany, Na- 
tural History, &c; or of Physical Science, as Che- 
mistry, Electricity, Statics, Dynamics, &c, the most 
backward in Classical knowledge can take refuge. 
There they can find something to interest them; 
something too which others do not know, some- 
thing in which they can attain distinction, and by 
so doing restore the balance of self-respect, or at 
least make some progress where many are quite 
ignorant. 

To bring a number of boys together without 
taking care that there is plenty of occupation, and 
something to interest different dispositions and taste?, 
is not training, whatever it may be ; and it is creating 
much evil, whatever else it may be. As great a 
variety of extra subjects as possible becomes a neces- 
sity in a great school. Healthy moral life very much 
depends on it. Enough note is not taken generally 
of the inevitable consequence of many boys sinking 
to a lower level, morally and intellectually, from want 
of proper occupation and training. They not only 



102 EDUCATION [Chap. 

are injured themselves, but must drag down the con- 
dition of their companions. In the sanitary world it 
has not been found that a typhus-breeding cottage is 
a convenient neighbour to a palace, however much a 
palace it may be. But it is not always easy to fix 
what people die of. People do die though, and are 
not comforted because the cause of their illness is 
unknown. Afterwards it seems sad to the survivors 
that so simple a cause should have been so deadly. 
Perhaps by and by, in another age, things will be 
managed differently, and we may be pitied by our 
sons' sons, who by that time will be in the opposite 
extreme, making school a green-house instead of a 
garden, planting each boy in a separate pot, and 
pulling him up by the roots every morning to see 
whether he has grown or not. Meanwhile the trans- 
ition period has its difficulties ; amongst them may 
be reckoned a floating notion that things are not 
right, which expects possibilities or impossibilities 
with equal confidence, and often is astonished at 
not getting the impossible, whilst careless whether 
the possible is done or not. But this is a digression. 
Whether in any given case it is a possibility or an 
impossibility, a great school cannot be without a 



VI.] AMD SCHOOL. 103 

variety of subjects to interest all comers, or if it is, 
the moral life will suffer. 

The question of professional training still re- 
mains. It has been shown above to be absolutely 
impossible to direct the studies of a great school 
to this end beyond a certain degree, without 
destroying the object of a great school, which is, 
mental and bodily training in the best way, apart 
from immediate gain. Still there are very many 
who wish to have a good education, and at the same 
time to graft some professional knowledge upon it. 
This can be done. And the view given above of 
the extra subjects greatly facilitates the doing it. 
If the extra subjects form so valuable a component 
part of a school, and are generally studied as filling- 
up work, there will be funds to support first-rate 
teachers, not inferior in any respect to the regular 
masters ; and this will make the giving professional 
training, as far as it is desirable to do so, easy. It 
secures competent teachers. 

The next thing to consider is, how far arrange- 
ments can be made to enable the boys to learn. 
With regard to the Indian Civil Service, there is no 
difficulty. A little reduction of the amount of Prose 



104 EDUCATION [Chap. 

and Verse Composition is all that can be spared from 
regular school- work for the extra subjects in this case. 
And if the Mathematical Examination gave sufficient 
marks for a sound knowledge of Low Mathematics, 
the most useful of all subjects up to the point stopped 
at, whatever that may be, a subject absolutely ne- 
cessary to the education of every well-educated man, 
the schools would have little cause to fear any rivals. 
Though the mistaken views of Examiners have made 
the standard of the classical papers too high in some 
instances. For a hard examination is another name 
for low marks for the candidates, and a consequent 
depreciation of the value of the subject. 

In the case of other professional knowledge a very 
large amount of time is gained by cutting off the 
Verse Composition, without at all breaking in on the 
main school-hours, the class-routine, or destroying the 
purpose of the school by doing away with the Greek 
and Latin Translation lessons. Obviously this con- 
cession to the necessity for immediate gain increases 
the difficulty a boy finds in really making way in 
his Greek and Latin, and, as far as it does so, takes 
away from the benefit he receives. But the main 
training is still left, and he continues to pursue the 



VI.] AND SCHOOL. 105 

same studies with his schoolfellows sufficiently to 
make him one with them, and not cut him off from 
their common life. It is dangerous to do anything 
that breaks up a school into parties. The beneficial 
power of the place will be diminished in proportion 
to the schism. But in order to mark the school 
sense of the value of the extra subjects, to give 
them school-rank, and make them living parts of 
the system, it will be well to give up one regular 
school-time in the week to their use ; thus putting 
them so far on the same footing with the main work. 
This, of course, assumes that no lessons are learnt 
in the school-hours, but that all times of preparing 
lessons, whether with or without masters, are kept 
distinct ; the school-hours being devoted to hearing the 
classes do the work they have prepared elsewhere. 
It also assumes that the extra masters are not peri- 
patetic, but attached to the school, and able there- 
fore to exercise a certain degree of influence on 
the boys, and to take care that their lessons are 
well done. "When this is the case, every extra 
master ought to have his income dependent on his 
work, and not be paid a fixed salary. After the 
terms which each pupil is to pay have been set- 



106 EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. VI. 

tied, the payment should be his; and his teaching, 
if successful, should at once benefit himself. This 
gives men an interest in their work, and its success, 
and makes toil sweeter, when toil brings its visible 
reward. These details may seem to smack of no 
high principle to some. Those who think so have 
never done trying work as their life's business. It 
is idle to suppose that the best men do not work 
better when every fair motive for good work is 
given them. And no system has any right to specu- 
late on always having the best men. No system 
can stand the wear and tear of practice over a 
series of years which disregards human nature as 
it is. Every good working system must be based 
on a sound calculation of what the average feelings 
and powers of average men are likely to effect in 
ordinary circumstances over a series of years. 



CHAPTER VII. 

What are a nation's possessions ? The great words that have 
been said in it ; the great deeds that have been done in it ; the great 
buildings, and the great works of art, that have been made in it. A 
man says a noble saying : it is a possession, first to his own race, 
then to mankind. A people get a noble building built for them : 
it is an honour to them, also a daily delight and instruction. It 
perishes. The remembrance of it is still a possession. If it was 
indeed pre-eminent, there will be more pleasure in thinking of it, 
than in being with others of inferior order and design. 

On the other hand, a thing of ugliness is potent for evil. It 
deforms the taste of the thoughtless : it frets the man who knows 
how bad it is ; it is a disgrace to the nation who raised it ; an exam- 
ple and an occasion for more monstrosities. It must be done away 
with. Next to the folly of doing a bad thing is that of fearing to 

undo it. 

Public Improvements. Friends in Council. 

The ground lias so far been cleared that the 
main object of a good school has been settled ; 
and also the main studies by which this object is 
to be attained; and the relative importance of the 
studies. The constructive part of a school now 
claims attention, the means necessary to carry out 
this plan. Now the area to be covered is large. 



108 EDUCATION [Chap. 

Everything pertaining rightfully to the intellectual, 
moral, religious, and physical life of a large num- 
ber of boys is the demand. Nay more, everything 
necessary to train that life rightly. It will be ob- 
vious at a glance that this demand cannot be met 
without having a vast amount of dead stock, if 
the expression may be used, in Buildings, School- 
rooms, Play-grounds, and all things pertaining to 
the efficient nse of such buildings and grounds. 
Work and play, the two great divisions of boy-life, 
must be thoroughly provided for. 

No men living can teach and train properly, if 
they are without the machinery for doing so. Then 
there must be a sufficient number of able men to 
make this machinery do its proper work. The true 
theory is to leave nothing to the excellence of the 
men who work the school that can be done by the 
machinery and appliances. All the machinery should 
be so perfect that the school may be expected to 
work well under the least favourable circumstances, 
and a fortiori under favourable circumstances in the 
hands of earnest and able men will it do its work. 
It is a crushing disadvantage to the strongest to 
find himself set to do the work of a steam-engine; 



VII.] AND SCHOOL. 109 

and the weak just sit down, and as they cannot 
do what they are expected to do, content them- 
selves with doing next to nothing. But men are 
of more value than walls; so the most important 
constructive fact in a great school is, 

That there shall be a permanent staff of masters, 
with their incomes depending on their work. 

The next is, that these masters shall not have 
more boys to deal with than each can attend to 
individually. 

The next is, that the boys shall not be forced 
to herd together in large rooms, but each have a 
sanctum of his own. 

The next is, that the boys shall be boarded 
in a proper way, that is, that all the domestic 
treatment shall fairly recognize their station in 
life. 

And the last is, that the boys shall be trusted, 
and free to do anything that a wise father would 
wish his son to do. 

On these five things depends the true rank of 
any school. 

A great school, great in principle, will not fail 
in any of the above-mentioned points. 



HO ED UCA TIOX [Chap. 

A great school will not have its masters birds 
of passage. 

A great school will not have too few masters. 

A great school will not be a barracks. 

A great school will not deal in a niggardly way. 

A great school will not be a prison. 

All these things require to be explained, and 
treated of separately. 

First, then, the masters must not be birds of 
passage. 

This arises from the character of their work. 
Their work is twofold. They have to teach, and 
they have the entire government and management 
of the boys. Certainly, if teaching is the instinct, 
the gift, the interesting pleasure, or the indifferent 
matter that it is often thought to be, birds of pas- 
sage can do it well enough. But what is teaching ? 
Teaching is a lifelong learning how to deal with 
human minds. As infinite as the human mind is 
in its variety, ought the resources of the teachers 
to be. The more stupid the pupils, the more skill 
is required to make them learn. And thus it comes 
to pass that whilst the mere possession of know- 
ledge is enough to teach advanced classes, if it is 



VII.] AND SCHOOL. Ill 

right to profane the word by calling pouring know- 
ledge into troughs teaching, the teaching little boys, 
and stupid boys, and low classes well, is a thing of 
wonderful skill. Not that there is not room for 
skill as great in the higher classes, but the ab- 
sence of it is not so self-evident. And knowledge 
is a thing that can be measured and ticketed ; 
skill is not, and therefore makes but little show. 
Hence young men come from the great knowledge- 
shops of the Universities, with their honours, their 
learning, and their intellectual sword-play, and scorn 
low classes, being ignorant of the variety of the 
human mind, ignorant of the exquisite skill, and 
subtle simplicity wanted to meet the twistings, and 
windings, and resistance of uncultivated humanity. 
They have got hold of a lump of knowledge, and 
go about with glorious effrontery, pushing it into 
every keyhole, and are angry that the locks will 
not open. Why, it is not a key at all as yet, and 
if it was a key, there are more locks than one in 
the world, and — more minds. Life is too short for 
any one to learn how to teach ; but not too short 
to begin learning. Let it be borne in mind, that 
if a class does not learn, it is the teacher's fault. 



112 EDUCATION [Chap. 

It may be the fault of the class too. But the 
teacher is set to train the class, and conquer its 
faults, not to be baffled by them. A colt may be 
restive, but it is the bad rider who is kicked off. 
The true teacher can never be said to have mas- 
tered his subject, because his subject is co-exten- 
sive with human nature. As soon as he has trained 
one boy, another has to be trained, and not the 
same over again, nor in quite the same way, if 
he is indeed a good teacher. However narrow the 
subject itself too may be, the range of illustration 
is not narrow ; the different points of view in which 
it may be put are not few. Or granted that in 
some instances they are ; how to manage all the 
different kinds of temper and forms of resistance, 
to quicken the dull, brace up the idle, master the 
obstinate, repress here, encourage there, soothe one, 
subdue another, breathe life and animation into 
all, is a task of the highest demand on power, 
and strength, and skill. And this has to be done 
every day; working men will understand the force 
of this observation. A master in his class-room 
cannot sink back and think, or rest for a minute 
or two, if weary, before he goes on again. He 



VII.] AND SCHOOL. 1 13 

must pursue his work also amidst constant inter- 
ruptions. He cannot relax his attention, or let his 
eye be absent, for a double work is always going 
on — the work of imparting knowledge and the work 
of keeping order. Books will wait, books make no 
noise, books play no tricks, books can be taken up 
or put down, even by the hardest-worked man, and 
a certain choice of time is in his hands ; if you are 
in good time your book is ; if you are not, your 
book makes no complaints, though it may be put 
off till twelve o'clock at night. 

But with boys all this is different. Well or ill, 
day by day, week by week, month by month, at ex- 
actly the same moment, a master must be fresh and 
active in spirit, or part of his work is not done. 
Gnawing cares may be in his heart, but his work 
must not know it ; the busy eyes and cunning idle- 
ness of boys must not find it out. Few know the 
m eaningof being ready at the same moment always. 
The work of any one moment may be no such great 
matter. Neither is walking a mile. It is pleasant to 
walk ten miles in a pretty country, or twenty, or 
thirty, to a strong man ; but go on, be forced to do 
forty, be goaded to fifty, or the extreme limit of 

8 



114 BD UGA T10N [Chap. 

human strength, and then be told by the bystanders 
in the last mile or two that it is only walking, and 
that it is easy to put one leg before another. Let 
no one imagine because teaching a willing or clever 
child occasionally is pleasant, that teaching all 
comers from all kinds of homes incessantly is plea- 
sant. The work has its rewards, but they are the 
rewards of the weary at close of day, and not of 
holiday sport. All enthusiasm, if there is nothing 
but enthusiasm, is soon rubbed off in the long day's 
labour, and its wonderful demands on patience and 
freshness of spirit. There needs a deeper, stronger 
truth than enthusiasm supplies, to keep a man's 
heart unseared in the midst of such toil — in the 
midst of numberless vexations that dealing with 
human beings always brings, from the conflict of 
separate wills and principles. 

The work is interesting, holy, great, and good, 
but no afternoon's by-play, no hireling work, if well 
done. It may be made so in a great degree by being 
treated as such ; but for all that, those who really 
do it, must do it in no hireling spirit. Can, then, 
young men just come and go and do it whilst look- 
ing about for something better, and do it well ? If 



VII.] AND SCHOOL. 115 

teaching is a great reality, and a most severe task, 
it must be acknowledged as such. These intense 
interests cannot find place in the heart of a man 
who has just pitched his tent, and will be off again 
to-morrow. He can pour out knowledge, but he 
will be no teacher. He will not so reach the heart — 
and the way even to the head is through the heart — 
he will not so reach the heart, and play with skill 
on the heart-strings, and be able or willing to study 
each page of humanity laid open before him, as to 
make him an efficient trainer of each boy. Every 
inducement that it is possible to bring to bear in 
order to make the work highly esteemed, to give a 
personal interest, a permanent attraction, should be 
brought to bear. Birds of passage flit too soon to 
care enough for it. 

Fathers and mothers do feel about the welfare, 
each of his own child ; it is strange how lightly 
they think and deal with those who manage all their 
children. Teaching is a science, and a most deep 
heart-question. That this is not the popular opinion 
on the subject does not alter the case, if it is true. 
And yet only half a master's duty, and that the 
least half, has been touched on. He has the whole 

8—2 



1 1 6 ED TIG AT ION [Chap. 

domestic management, discipline, and life of a certain 
number of boys in his hands, for which he is respon- 
sible ; at least in all schools where anybody is really 
responsible for this. Year by year under his roof 
comes all the evil as well as all the good of English 
homes. He has to train these boys to be honour- 
able, free men. He must believe, even against be- 
lief, that freedom and liberty to do everything a 
wise father would wish his son to do, is the only 
sure means of making boys free men ; and that 
prison walls and prison discipline are no training 
against vice. Yet they are but boys, boys too from 
very various homes. All the evil they do comes to 
the surface from time to time, to vex and rouse 
suspicion, and break down faith, whilst the good 
is less obtrusive, even when it is more real. If 
there are three hundred boys in a school, and each 
boy commits a fault only once in the year, the 
minds of the masters are occupied with faults every 
day. It needs strong faith to prevent the heart- 
confidence in good principles from being battered 
down by this incessant artillery. It needs much 
careful study of character, much patience, much 
interest in the work, to keep it from being slurred 



VII.] AND SCHOOL. 1 17 

over. Besides this, there is the painful duty of 
dealing honestly with graver offences ; painful in 
itself, as requiring all a good man's judgment, and 
probing and vexing his conscience as to how to act 
best ; but painful also in some cases from the 
attacks, secret or open, which are constantly made 
to induce men to break down their discipline, and 
lower the tone of the whole school-life by doing 
so. Unless a school is very strong in reputation, 
cases of this sort seem, and are, matters of life 
and death to it, certain loss for the time, possible 
ruin. And blame is generally most plentifully be- 
stowed where the greatest pains and the greatest 
anxiety have been expended, for the good boys 
are easily managed. These things tend to harden 
the heart, and require much power or principle to 
resist them. Then there are even the more trying 
instances where good fathers and mothers have to 
be told of their sons' delinquencies, and the telling 
is almost more painful to the teller than to them, 
from his honouring and sympathising with their sor- 
row. Then sickly seasons — a necessary average of 
illness, taking year by year — and all the various 
cares of domestic life, contribute their quota to a 



1 1 8 ED VGA TION [Chap. 

schoolmaster's day of toil. In the morning it begins 
as he leaves his bed-room, when he goes to bed 
it is still there. No hour in the day is free, no 
time secure. And human beings are the material 
dealt with, human hearts and human lives are the 
stake. Is this a work for a 'prentice hand ? is 
this a work for a man who is here to-day and gone 
to-morrow ? It is a life-lonsr, never-ceasing, ever- 
beginning learning how to do better. The life- 
blood of England should not be let run to waste. 
It is no hireling work. Free men must do it in 
a free spirit, or the nation will rue the end. Not 
least on this account are the old Foundations a 
great saving power in the land. Whatever their 
faults may be, they are generally free from med- 
dling, free from the necessity of always producing 
some show, something saleable. They are able to 
stand a storm without shrinking, and to face with 
calmness the morning letter-bag and the penny post. 
But above all, they are strong in the fact that 
their origin dates from the liberality of the dead. 
Their roots are in the hallowed past, and out of 
the grave of great and good men, great and good 
at all events so far as not grudging money in a 



VII.] AND SCHOOL. 1 19 

good cause, grows the shelter under which the work 
of education is carried on. Those who believe in 
Education, believe also in this ; and feel a deeper, 
truer sense of life and work from carrying on a good 
man's purpose, are freer from not being beholden 
to living task-masters, are chastened into more pa- 
tient endurance by the memory of the trust they 
have received. . It gladdens and cheers them that 
they are links in a chain of life and light, "Vitai 
lampada tradunt," and not merely sitting in the 
Temple as money-changers. It is essential there- 
fore that life should be devoted to a work such as 
this, the waste of which is human blood, and that 
no motive should be withheld which can be brought 
to bear, in order to help and cheer the workers. 
And not the least strong amongst motives is the 
sense of having found a home, a permanent inte- 
rest, a place to abide in, and the not being a bird 
of passage. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

" Big and beautiful you were last year, my colt," said the lad, 
" but this year you're far grander. There is no such horse in the 
King's stable. But now you must come along with me." 

"No," said Dapple again, "I must stay here one year more. 
Kill the twelve foals as before, that I may suck the mares the whole 
year, and then just come and look at me when the summer comes." 

Yes, the lad did that ; he killed the foals, and went away home. 

Happelgrim. Tales from the Norse. — Dasewt. 

The next point in a great school is the necessity 
that the boys shall not outnumber the masters on a 
disproportionate scale. The fact of there being too 
few masters utterly undermines the school life, and 
causes a fearful waste of the riving material. This 
affects the school both in its teaching, and in its 
morale. It is clear at once that too great a number 
of boys to one master is fatal to teaching, because 
it becomes an impossibility to attend to individuals, 
to explain, to inspirit, or in any way to find out 
their special needs, and adapt the knowledge given 
to these. But this alone is worthy of the name of 



Chap. VIII] EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. 12 1 

teaching. It is quite true that a lecturer can lec- 
ture to as many people as can hear him. The only 
limit is the distance his voice will reach. But lec- 
turing and teaching are different things. Lectures 
suppose that every one is fairly advanced in the 
subject, eager to get on, and able to keep up with 
the pace. Immediately any one of these postulates 
is not true in fact, the lecture becomes a noise, and 
nothing more. All schoolboys, of course, are fairly 
advanced, eager to get on, and able to keep up with 
lectures. There is a delightful simplicity about this 
theory which quite marks a great discovery. 

But even if this was the case, how entirely this 
theory, as far as it is carried out, converts the master 
into a knowledge-machine, removes him from living 
contact with his class, makes the boys a more or less 
orderly mob to him, a numerical statement in which 
individual interest is merged and lost. They are a 
number of faces, not hearts ; there is no getting near 
them, no kindly intercourse, or possibility of treat- 
ing them as human beings. And the boys, on their 
part, barely think the master a human being, for he 
only appears to them an adamantine disregarder of 
human weaknesses. 



122 EDI' CATION [Chap. 

In such a state of things some few may get on 
exceedingly well, but there is no teaching. A small 
minority will always get on. A Stephenson will 
work his way up without any school at all. And 
eminent success in a school depends far more on the 
luck of getting clever boys from good homes in the 
school than is generally supposed. In the present 
state of English education the majority are so illite- 
rate, and come to good schools so late, that no power 
can make them first-rate. Thus the few schools 
which enjoy almost a monopoly of the well-trained 
little boys have nearly the same advantage over the 
others as regards high honours that a trainer of race- 
horses would have over a trainer of cart-horses. 
For a course of doing nothing, or next to nothing, 
makes a boy by the time he is fourteen intellec- 
tually a cart-horse. 

The star system is a very fallacious test of a good 
school, though it holds good thus far, that no first- 
rate school will fail in having distinguished scholars 
in proportion to its numbers in time. But taken 
simply as conclusive in favour of a good school, it 
may mean nothing more than a state of things like 
the old Norse fable, where the fairy horse, that is to 



VIII.] AND SCHOOL. 1 23 

win the king's daughter for his master, requires every 
year that the other twelve foals shall all be killed 
and their portions given to him. Very satisfactory 
for the twelve foals and their mothers. The master, 
however, wins the king's daughter in grand style. 
But a great school ought to give the portions re- 
quired for the one, without killing the twelve to do 
it. If the numbers are fairly proportioned to each 
teacher, it can be done. Good teaching improves 
the lowest, and is more effective than lecturing for 
the highest. With boys the true way to the head 
is through the heart. They must, as far as possible, 
be interested, and made to feel that they are cared 
for, and that the toil is for their good. Give a 
master who knows his work the opportunity of 
touching the hearts of his boys, and many will 
brighten up who before looked on work as hopeless. 
There is very little want of ability in boys natu- 
rally, but there is great want of willingness, an in- 
grained antagonism to learning, and dread of it, and 
very often utter incapacity for self-teaching. But 
many a boy can be taught who is quite unable to 
learn by himself. It is very painful sometimes to see 
the hopeless despair with which boys, and good boys 



124 JSD UCATION [Chap. 

too, have got to look upon tasks which only require 
a little explanation and time. Is any one prepared to 
say that the great difficulty felt in raising the mass 
of the young, is not the consequence of that settled 
belief that has gradually sunk into the souls of the 
untaught, and been transmitted from generation to 
generation, of learning being a kind of magic gift to 
some and not to others ; and that the cultivation of 
the mind is but another name for unmanly, painful 
toil and degradation ? All can learn who are taught ; 
and learn on the whole well, if they begin early, 
are not frightened into thinking it hard, and have 
any faith in teaching. With a good teacher it 
becomes a simple question of time. All can learn, 
but the clever boys learn more quickly. That is 
all. It is, however, a serious deficiency in a school 
to have no teaching. But there is no teaching if 
the numbers are beyond the power of a master to 
deal with individually. A few of these may be 
taught, the rest are killed to feed the fairy horse. 
Anybody may arrive at a rough estimate of the 
amount of teaching in any school, by a simple arith- 
metical calculation. If the numbers of a class are 
known, and the hours spent in school, with the aver- 



VIII.] AND SCHOOL. 1 25 

age length of the lessons, it will be easy to find by a 
division sum the chance each boy has of being called 
on to do part of the lesson, due allowance being 
made for the fact, that each boy who is thus called 
on must take a fair time in doing anything at all. 
In the case of composition the result is still more 
attainable, because exercises in composition require 
to be looked over separately, and ought to be com- 
mented on separately; the average number of mi- 
nutes therefore that can be given to each boy is 
actually attained. For instance, if 40 boys do three 
exercises a week, a master has to look over 120 
exercises: supposing five minutes are allowed to 
each exercise, there is at once a result of ten hours' 
ceaseless work required to give even this attention 
to each. And ten hours' ceaseless work is no joke; 
it cannot be done without an actual allowance of 
considerably more time, taking into consideration 
the little breaks, rests, and interruptions, that in- 
evitably occur. It must also be borne in mind, that 
boys never learn unless a certain amount of com- 
pulsion is applied. The very best will be idle and 
inattentive, if they are not likely to have their work 
tested, and many under such circumstances are idle 



12 6 ED TIG A TIOX [Chap. 

and inattentive always. But the object of a school 
is training, not merely the enabling those who 
choose to get knowledge. Yet if there are too few 
masters, for many boys there is no teaching, and, 
as far as this reaches, no training. 

Nor is this all, nay, it is comparatively a slight 
evil. It affects the morale, if possible, still more 
than the intellectual progress of the boys. In the 
first place, it puts at once a large number, and those 
too very often distinguished in games, out of the pale 
of masters' influence, and in direct antagonism to it. 
The masters become to them mere hinderers of their 
pleasures, inflicters of disgrace, irresponsible enforcers 
of laws that cannot be obeyed, in fact, out of their 
horizon altogether, beings of another sphere, and not 
a nice sphere either, a sort of compound of book and 
rod born for their special torture. What a caricature 
this is of the position of a true teacher which can 
bring to bear more powerful leverage, more human 
and effectual motives of the best kind than any 
other relation between man and man. But pupils 
gathered together to be taught, who only enjoy that 
excellent substitute for butter, — punishment, scarcefy 
appreciate this fact. The spirit of antagonism is 



VIII.] AND SCHOOL. 1 27 

inevitable, it splits the school in two. All is fair in 
an enemy's country becomes the school creed; and 
farewell truth and honour as far as regards the boy- 
idea of those very men whose duty it is to foster 
truth and honour in them. All higher interests 
vanish, and the life that the boys themselves can 
establish becomes their life. The external laws are 
worked by the masters, but the real laws which 
each boy in heart obeys, the society laws, the public 
opinion laws, are laws of their own; and will not 
rise higher than the very limited experience and 
range of the average boy-mind, and the much 
tempted and easily deluded philosophy of the foolish 
boy-heart will let it. Bodily strength and the 
pastry-cook become divinities ; and must do so, for 
it is a universal law that low temptations can only 
be really got rid of by implanting higher tastes and 
higher interests. It is useless to resist the fog as 
long as you walk in it; a little higher up the hill 
there is no fog to resist. The poor navvy, whose 
ideal, scarcely to be surpassed in his mind by Para- 
dise itself, — for what could Paradise give more? — 
whose ideal was a beer-shop, a sanded floor, a bright 
fire and a fiddle, is after all a representative man. We 



123 EDUCATION [Chap. 

laugh at his Paradise, but in one form or another 
it is the Paradise of all neglected beings. If boys 
never taste the sweets of knowledge, and are prac- 
tically made to think that knowledge is out of their 
reach, they will take to the navvy's Paradise. They 
learn to associate all the higher interests and pur- 
suits of the place they live in, with disagreeable 
and seemingly capricious power that tells them to 
do what they cannot do, and punishes them when 
they cannot do it. The height is impossible, it is 
also detestable, and yet climbing the height is the 
only possible deliverance from the navvy's Paradise. 
Happiness, or something intended for it, must be 
found somewhere; under such circumstances where 
is a boy to find it ? It is not put in his way, so too 
often he seeks it in idleness and illegal pleasures. 
And by this door enters the long list of acted 
falsehoods; so begins the life-deceit that figures so 
largely in the creed and practice of the would-be- 
man boy. No doubt there will always be evil, no 
doubt too a thoroughly good, well-trained boy will 
keep clear of evil; but a school ought to train, and 
not merely furnish implements for the trained. A 
school ought to weed out evil and false life, not sow 



VIIL] AND SCHOOL. 1 29 

it and grow it as a regular crop. The school-life 
itself ought to be so interesting, so free, so hearty, 
so full of outlet for all good impulses of body or 
mind, that low and illicit meannesses should not 
answer. But this cannot be if the masters are only 
grinding machines, so overworked as never to be at 
liberty, so far removed by their overwork from the 
social life of the school, as never to be able to find 
time to know and feel with their boys. 

It may, however, be thought that the double 
life and falseness is confined to the outschool work ; 
it pervades the school work to a still greater degree. 
If a class is beyond a master's power to teach on 
account of its numbers, there is only one way to 
deal with it. The lecturer must insist on a certain 
quantum of visible work being produced by all, and 
take no excuse if it is not forthcoming. There must 
be so many lines learnt, so many verses done, so 
much prose, &o, and any defaulter must be pu- 
nished at once. For he has no time to judge and 
consider whether every boy can or cannot do this 
quantity always. He has barely time to see that 
it seems to be done, and even when he is well aware 
that the apparent result is a fiction he is quite 

9 



1 30 ED TIC A TION [Chap. 

powerless to alter the system. Everything would 
go to pieces if he began making distinctions be- 
tween the boys, and he would lay himself open to 
unlimited imposition. The great discipline laws 
must be observed, and the tale of bricks delivered, 
for there is no means of estimating the work ex- 
cepting by the fixed tale. This is what meets the 
eye, but the truth is, , the master knows, and all 
the boys know, that a fair percentage never make 
one brick themselves, but by every conceivable false- 
hood, by cribs, by old copies, by getting construes, 
by having the exercises written for them, make 
their whole school career one long lie. Of course 
when found out they are punished. Also, this sort 
of lie is not rated so low as other sorts of lies, but 
the comparative value of lies is scarcely the lesson 
intended to be learnt at school. Yet all this goodly 
crop is actually sown and grown generation after 
generation in every school where there are too few 
masters. 

Plenty of occupation, mental and bodily, is the 
one practical secret of a good school. And the most 
important condition, without which plenty of occu- 
pation cannot exist, is that there shall be plenty of 



VIII.] AND SCHOOL. 131 

masters. A considerable experience has shown that 
an average of about twenty-five boys to each clas- 
sical master is as much as can be well managed 
taking the whole school through. And these must 
form one class, be employed on the same books, 
and be the sole charge of that master. It has yet 
to be proved that one man can teach many classes 
with advantage. When a master has the whole 
teaching of one class of manageable numbers, he is 
able first of all to become acquainted with the 
subjects he has to teach in all their bearings, as 
he has time for thought, and his attention is not 
distracted by a multiplicity of pursuits. This will 
produce in the case of a thoughtful man an amount 
of illustration and teaching power that is not sup- 
posed usually even to exist. He is able also to 
make himself acquainted with the powers and at- 
tainments of every boy under him, and as far as 
his judgment goes to apportion fairly their tasks 
to each, to help them when needful, to deal with 
them singly, weighing each case ; and though his 
judgment may err in some instances, errors of judg- 
ment are very different things from arbitrary routine. 
All the credit, if the class does well, is his, all the 

9—2 



132 ED UCA TION AND SCHOOL, [Chap. VIII. 

discredit, if it does badly. For no one shares his 
work with him as far as that set of boys, at that 
time, is concerned. He can be a friend amongst 
friends with his boys, because he has time to know 
them, and this will not diminish his power but 
increase it a thousand fold. Boys like justice, even 
severity, if just, and not capricious. A man in ear- 
nest, and able to know the boys, will not lose them 
as friends because he is in earnest, even when 
earnestness means punishing wrong doing. Thus 
as the teaching is true, as each boy is cared for, 
as a proper sphere is found for each where he can 
get healthy interests, as everybody is reached and 
no one left out, a boy if he does choose the navvy's 
Paradise and a life of lies, chooses it deliberately, 
against and in spite of better things set before him. 
At all events the school does not make him choose 
it. A great school, therefore, will not have too few 
masters. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

The line of new boys stood altogether at the further table — of 
all sorts and sizes, like young bears with all their troubles to come, 
as Tom's father said to him when he was in the same position. He 
thought of it as he looked at the line, with poor little slight Arthur 
standing with them, and as he was leading him upstairs to number 4 
directly after prayers, and showing him his bed. It was a huge high 
airy room, with two large windows looking on the school close. 
There were twelve beds in the room. Poor little Arthur was over- 
whelmed with the novelty of his position. The idea of sleeping in 
the room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind before, 
and was as painful as it was strange to him. 

Tom Brown's School Days. 

"A LONG table and a square table, or seats about 
the walls," says Bacon, " seem things of form, but are 
things of substance, for at a long table a few at the 
upper end in effect sway all the business, but in 
the other form there is more use of the counsellors' 
opinions that sit lower." Half the mistakes of life 
are the difference between the long and square 
table. And this particularly applies to school life, 
because the boy cannot change the externals of his 



134 ED TJCATION [Chap. 

life. It is a tiling of substance whether all things 
necessary for training are there or not. Boys are 
sent out from their homes, where they are at home, 
and have their little comforts, to be trained amongst 
strangers. It is excellent that this should be so. 
How bad it would be if there was no corrective 
for the different failings of different homes, nothing 1 
to take a boy out of the pod in which he found 
himself, nothing to prevent his thinking that the 
pod ruled the world*. So boys are sent to school 
to be trained. This is important. They are not 
trained men exercising powers already practised, 
but learners. They come to be taught how to live, 
to be prepared to meet the trials of life, to find 
out that as they must some day act alone on their 
own responsibility, it is well to begin to know how 
to do so. The preparation then is a preparation 
for the general habits of life hereafter. They are 
to be trained first of all to study. They do not 
understand as yet how to do it, and clearly there- 
fore are not likely to do it under less favourable 
circumstances than trained men require in order 
to study. What then do men require who have 

* Aunt Judy's Tales. 



IX.] AND SCHOOL. 135 

been trained to intellectual work. They require, 
above all things, quiet, a place without disturbance, 
where there shall be as little as possible to draw 
off attention, or distract the mind. And this is 
after the repugnance to study has been overcome, 
when the worker knows how to work, and is eager 
to do it. 

If this is necessary for the trained man, it is 
a thousand-fold more necessary for the poor boy 
who has everything to learn, who does not yet 
know even how to work. If a master is always 
in the room when work is going on, quiet is fairly 
secured, but that is all. No choice is given the 
boy, no training in the management of time, and 
the great question of leisure is quite unprovided 
for. If a master is not there, it is a mockery to 
put a boy into a large room full of all sorts of 
dispositions, sizes, and strengths, and to call it train- 
ing for intellectual work. Nay four or five in a 
room together are quite as dangerous. If, however, 
any boys can exist satisfactorily under such circum- 
stances, it must be the older boys who have learnt 
to take care of themselves ; but these are precisely 
the boys who are given any advantage of privacy 



136 ED UCATION [Chap. 

that there is to be had, in the barrack-system. 
Yet the little boys most of all require a place by 
themselves, if it is not possible to give it to all. 
For they are most unprotected, most exposed to 
temptation, and most in need of a refuge. 

As far as lessons, however, are concerned, the 
large room is not so fatal, provided a master is al- 
ways in it. True, this would be sadly out of har- 
mony with any free system, but it would ensure a 
certain amount of work. The large room is most 
destructive to the private life, if such it can be called. 
A little fellow fresh from home is compelled to spend 
some of his leisure time amongst a number of boys 
of all characters. Imagine how pleasant, how favour- 
able to morality this compulsory companionship 
must be, when a state of things is produced in 
which it is not possible for a boy to escape from 
hearing, or seeing whatever the worst boy there 
dares say or do; not possible either to escape from 
the bullying of his most detested tyrants. What 
is this a training for? Not for manhood, for these 
are not the customs of after life in manhood. No 
man is obliged always to be in the company of 
those he fears or abhors, as too many boys are. 



IX.] AND SCHOOL. 1 37 

Temptation in after life is never brought so near, 
is never so utterly closing all around its victim 
with a presence so clinging, a power so absolute, so 
lawless. And little boys, fresh from all the love 
of home, who have never known what it is to 
be uncared for an hour, are flung into this cold 
bath. If a boy is a good boy, and not strong, (for 
strength is the school-boy's idol,) what a martyr he 
becomes at once. Ridicule and violence are equally 
brought to bear on all his best feelings. He never 
knows a moment's peace. Add open dormitories to 
the picture, and do not suppose, whatever novels 
may assert, that little Christian confessors say their 
prayers, and kneel, and at last win the respect of 
their more hardened companions by doing so. It 
is not done: and cannot well be done, for the 
coming and going, and talking and stir, of a num- 
ber of boys in an open room makes it impossible. 
But if it was done, is this an ordeal that a boy 
ought to pass through \ What is there like it in 
after life ? In after life, of course, strangers stand 
night by night in a man's bedrQom and thrash him 
if he prays, interfere with his dressing and un- 
dressing, and perpetrate all the other nameless 



138 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

tricks and tortures that thoughtless folly or malice 
can inflict. Doubtless these things do not always 
take place; but is it training boys exposing them 
to the chance of such things ? Many, too many, 
know and have suffered all, many are now suffering. 
Many know that such a chapter as ought to be 
written on this subject to do it justice, would not 
be believed, but set down as a base figment. 

However, the real question is, what is proper 
training: and when human beings are the subject, 
principles must be looked to, and their natural re- 
sults. Facts can be made to tell almost any story 
an advocate pleases. That is, in this chequered world 
the best system will have its bad cases where the 
principles have been defied, and wrong been done 
in spite of them, — its adverse facts, which an ad- 
verse counsel can make a good thing of. And the 
worst will have its redeeming cases, in spite of its 
badness, in opposition to its principles, which a 
favourable advocate can dress up. Faith in princi- 
ples alone, and a calm consideration of them, can 
save men in dealing with human life. It is for 
this reason that out of the fund of anecdotes, and 
personal experience, and facts at command, none 



IX.] AND SCHOOL. 139 

are quoted here; in order that the principles, and 
their logical and certain consequences may be seen, 
unmystified by party feeling and party facts. Only 
general assertions are made, based upon the obvious 
circumstances of each case, in order that an un- 
biassed opinion may be formed whether these cir- 
cumstances are a proper training for the young or 
not. Yet no one who has not experienced it can 
imagine the desolation of helplessness, the utter 
exposure to all-pervading wrong that can take place 
under such conditions. Even a slave is safe some- 
times, he does not live in the same room with his 
tyrant, but the boy-slave has his master in the 
same room always. 

And whereas the most essential part of training 
is a certain freedom of choice, by which self-manage- 
ment, self-control, and power to resist temptation is 
fostered, a little boy is sometimes plunged at once 
into a whirlpool of power and companionship that 
is fitted to" break down every tendency to right and 
healthy self-government. One of the great religious 
commands is " to ponder our ways," to withdraw 
from, the press of busy life, and in our hearts weigh 
well what is true, and what is not true, in the hurry 
and glitter of the world. And school sometimes 



140 EDUCATION [Chap. 

trains boys by never allowing them a moment to 
carry out this great duty. Yet how needful it is 
for the little exile from home, with strange new life 
amongst strangers round about him for the first 
time, to have a spot, however small, which shall be 
his own, where he shall be safe, with his books, and 
his letters ; where he can think, and weep if need be, 
or rejoice, unmolested, and escape for a season out 
of the press of life about him, and the strange hard- 
ness of a new existence into a little world of his own, 
a quasi-home, to find breathing space, and gather 
strength before he comes out again. Nowhere on 
earth is six or eight feet square more valuable than 
at school, the little bit which is a boy's own, the 
rock which the waves do not cover. Such things as 
these just form the square table instead of the long 
one, which by its mere shape and framework alters 
all life. No great school will force the boys to con- 
gregate together. 

The next position that a great school will not 
be niggardly, needs no proof, but yet requires to be 
stated. As a matter of fact, the behaviour of any 
body of men depends very much on how they are * 
treated. But this is not the whole question. A 
school ought not only to accept a given state of 



IX.] AND SCHOOL. 141 

behaviour, but to train it; to train boys to do 
right. No possible perversion of idea can make 
mean and niggardly treatment a training for right. 
For instance, if a school does not give the boys pro- 
per food, the getting fresh and better food becomes 
one of the necessities of life, not merely a matter of 
greediness. But if the school turns the attention of 
the boys strongly on to food in this way, there can 
be but little power to restrain them from illicit 
things. Or again, if a boy never receives a drop of 
drinkable beer, he may be very wrong in frequenting 
pot-houses for it, but certainly he is sorely tempted. 

These things may appear at first sight mat- 
ters of comfort, but they are matters of morality. 
The deceit, greediness, and drinking that find en- 
trance in consequence are grievously wrong in the 
boys who give way to temptation, but to create 
temptation is a fearful thing in the power which 
ought to guard against it. 

Moreover, once let boys have good reason to 
think that their interests are not the same as those 
of the masters, and that masters have not their 
good honestly at heart in all things; let them con- 
sciously or unconsciously feel that there are double 
purposes going on, and the inevitable result will 



J 4 2 ED V r CATION [Chap. 

be a want of faith in every precept that goes 
against the grain. Meanness instead of liberality, 
nntraiiiing instead of training, induces a settled be- 
lief that masters command for their own interests, 
and talk ffood, because it is their business to talk 
good, but that it is only talk. Boys are very apt 
to think themselves wiser than their masters from 
sheer boyish ignorance and conceit, add to this a 
well-grounded mistrust in the double purposes that 
are going on, and perhaps their estimate is not so 
very far wrong. But we must not lose sight of train- 
ing ; is this sort of thing training ? Does it conduce 
to truth? 

There is another point also to be considered. 
It is a curious but well-known fact that it is 
of the nature of evil to reproduce itself. The slave 
in power is a tyrant. Those who are ill-treated 
ill-treat others. What a nursery of bullying and 
petty cruelty this sort of system is. If there are 
too few servants, which is a usual concomitant of 
the above-mentioned evils, some one must do the 
things that have to be done, and it is not difficult 
to find who that some one is. The little, the igno- 
rant, and the backward boys who are low in the 
school, are the some one. So in a regular chain, like 



IX.] AND SCHOOL. 143 

the tropical picture, where the tarantula catches the 
humming-bird, the chamelion the tarantula, the lizard 
the chamelion, the snake the lizard, the kite the 
snake, the eagle the kite, and man of course the 
eagle, the spirit of destruction descends, and instead 
of a manly feeling of protection and help, the exact 
contrary is engendered. The personal character of 
the rulers will certainly tend to counteract this. 
And no one who is acquainted with the generous 
free spirit, and earnestness, that so largely leavens 
every great school in England from the men at work 
there, in spite of the machinery obstacles, can doubt 
that this is the case. But why set earnest men to 
swim up stream always ? The stream must prevail 
in time. It is a natural law that a constant power 
will overcome anything less constant. The inert mass 
of any place ought always to be in the workers' fa- 
vour; for that is a matter of brick, and mortar, and 
wood, which can be shaped at pleasure. Human 
hearts ought to be spared all work that brick and 
mortar can do better. There should be no unneces- 
sary wear and tear of the living material, boys or 
masters, which a mason and carpenter can prevent. 
Mortar is cheaper than blood. 



CHAPTER X. 

" After all, Milverton, do you see so much to object to in being 
a slave ? In freedom there is certainly room to dash yourself against 
things, but it is small comfort to a man to think that he has made a 
great part of his own misery himself." 

Milverton. "Yet that must be the best education for another 
world in which there is some freedom for good and evil. If you 
begin discussing the matter with reference to happiness alone, you 
may as well take in the animal creation, and contend that they are 
better off than men. Suffering of all kinds is not without its instruc- 
tion: but surely that suffering is most instructive, which a man has 
had something to do with in making for himself. Perhaps the worst 
state for man might be denned to be, not that which has most suf- 
fering, but that which has most suffering with the least instruction 
and discipline growing out of it." 

That Slavery is Cruel. Friends in Council. 

The last point that will never be neglected in a 
great school has, to a great degree, been anticipated 
in the previous chapters ; the necessity of trusting 
the boys, and allowing them liberty to do anything 
that a wise father would wish his son to do. Under 
a right system, there cannot be any doubt about 
the matter. One thing is certain, there is no real 



Chap. X.] EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. 1 45 

halting-place between perfect truth in the system 
with trust as regards the boys, and complete and 
constant supervision, walled play-grounds, bolts and 
bars. In other words, it is safer to trust much 
than to trust little, and there must either be com- 
plete prison rule or a wise trust. The reason is 
simple. One of the strongest motives for good is 
the consciousness of having a character to lose. 

As soon as any one sees that his superior does 
not believe in his character, and only trusts him 
to a certain point, he is tempted to trespass a little 
further, if convenient, as he runs no risk of losing 
his character by doing so. 

Prison rule, as far as it goes, is obviously effective ; 
it gives little trouble, if thoroughly carried out, and 
keeps up a fair outside. It is clear, that if a wall is 
high enough, the locks good enough, or a master 
always present, no outward act of evil can very well 
be done. But neither the mind nor the tongue can 
be imprisoned, and, until a lock has been found for 
these, only the form of the evil is altered. And 
to what a painful extent. Instead of having a few 
criminals kept under and scouted by the society 
itself, and a large number of manly, honourable, 

10 



146 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

and impendent boys, all are mistrusted, and de- 
graded by the mistrust. Instead of a well-trained 
majority, who can be relied on to do right in sight 
and out of sight, from having right in themselves, 
all are treated as suspicious characters, giving the 
really criminal undue influence; for in a band of 
criminals the worst is the greatest man. An effemi- 
nate weakness is the best result of such a system ; a 
corrupt putrescence of sneaking sensuality the worst. 
But it will be better to admit, for argument's 
sake, that the lock has been found for mind and 
tongue as well as for the body, and that the 
prison system is complete and does its work per- 
fectly. Well then, the boys are so shut in that 
they never do any evil, because evil never comes in 
their way to be done. What then becomes of the 
training ? In what part of free England, or the 
lawless world, are these hothouse perfections going 
to live by and by? There is something inexpres- 
sibly comic, if it was not also inexpressibly sad, 
in the idea of training boys to take an active part 
in free, honourable English life, by imprisoning 
them, by keeping them in an entirely artificial 
state of existence, enslaving- them to make them 



X.] AND SCHOOL. 1 47 

free. Experience is generally considered of value ; 
and as in after life the man will have to take care 
of himself, excepting in a lunatic asylum or a gaol, 
in early life the boy should learn to take care of 
himself, unless he is qualifying for a lunatic asylum 
or a gaol. Great things will hereafter be entrusted 
to him, he had better begin by learning to be 
trustworthy in little things. 

It is, doubtless, a fascinating sight to some 
people to see a charming uniformity, a trim per- 
fection ; a strong will can easily produce it in 
inferiors. Spectators applaud, but as soon as the 
shears stop work, the brambles take their revenge 
for having been clipped, instead of rooted out. It 
is a pleasanter, at least a less vexatious life, for 
the master to clip the boys to a pattern, and never 
allow a bramble to be seen, than to trust to growth, 
to let the brambles grow too, and then pull them 
out as they appear ; for this makes the fingers 
bleed ; it makes the heart bleed, and the lookers- 
on scoff, but the work once done, is done. 

However, as a fact, in a large school the prison 
system can never be complete. Another state of 
things arises in consequence. The great prison 

10—2 



J 4 8 EDUCATION [Chap. 

rules press with intense severity on the boys who 
keep consciences, whilst there is great impunity for 
those who do not. Whoever dares run the risk, 
and the very daring has its charms, can easily get 
out of the ill-watched prison, and the risk is not 
great. Once outside, no one is on the look out; 
the discipline does not contemplate any outside 
work, so the chances of discovery are very slight. 
Thus, a boy first screws himself up to a lawless 
pitch before he commits any wrong, and, having 
done so, is ripe for tenfold the licentious iniquity 
that he otherwise would be; on the same prin- 
ciple that a foreign mob having to face bayonets 
and artillery at once, is far more dangerous than 
an English mob, which only contemplates a row 
with the police. 

It is perfectly true that in a large school with 
too few masters, and some or all of the inconsis- 
tencies before mentioned in its internal machinery, 
there will be much license if it is free. Plenty 
of teaching, plenty of occupation, plenty of games, 
combined with good laws, can alone prevent this. 
But grant it. There can be no doubt that, com- 
pared with the prison system (which has the license 



X.] AND SCHOOL. 149 

too), it is no evil at all. No boy is compelled 
to be base and licentious in the free system — nay, 
many are not even tempted to be, for it may 
not come much in their way, and does not, if they 
are heartily taking the good the school provides. 
But in the prison system the mistrust is like the 
air they breathe, everywhere, and on all sides. The 
companionship is compulsory. All the elements of 
evil are cooped together in a narrow space, and 
no escape is possible. There may be a sewer in 
both instances, but a sewer in a town is deadly, in 
the open fields at worst a nuisance. No one who 
studies the question can doubt that the free life 
of most of our English schools is admirable, and 
that in spite of faults, which have slowly grown 
up and are hard to remove, there is a noble spirit 
in them on the whole, and much pure and devoted 
power to be found both in masters and boys. Above 
all they are free, and so far fit training-places for 
the free; full of old traditions of hardihood and fun, 
strong in the attachment they command both from 
their antiquity and greatness, and from the personal 
power, the fine spirit, the earnest zeal, and honour 
of the men who carry on the work in them. If 



150 ED UCATION [Chap. 

personal excellence could of itself make a school 
great without due appliances, then there would be 
no use in saying another word. But in one thing 
there has been no shortcoming in the best of them. 
They are free, and fit training-places so far for the 
free. No great school will turn itself into a prison. 

There is, however, another side of this question, 
and that not the least important, the effect of a 
slave system on the masters. It is difficult enough, 
under any circumstances, to find sufficient means of 
pleasant communication between hard- worked, care- 
ful men and light-hearted boys. An earnest man 
who has his heart in his work is often tempted to go 
mad over the class-work, and the want of zeal and 
appreciation of it even in his best boys. Too often it 
is like pouring the heart-blood on the ground to be 
trampled on. It is hard to bear the sight of the idle 
and the foolish yawning over the treasured thought, 
the harvest of toilsome years, the victorious result 
of successful battling ; almost harder to see the 
best swallowing it as a task to be done. Or, in a 
lower point of view, it is hard to go over day by 
day, again and again, the same groundwork, which 
a few minutes of real attention would make even 



X.] AND SCHOOL. 151 

a stupid boy know, but which the boy-power of 
not caring makes a work of years, and not done 
then. And this is what the teacher lives for, what 
he is judged by. If the lessons are the only meet- 
ing-ground, and outside the school-room there is 
no common life found, heaven preserve the masters. 
The boys will not fare well, but they hate it and 
escape. But the masters — the iron in such a case 

m 

must enter into their souls, and make them ill- 
tempered machines, always turning on one rusty 
handle. The pleasure of seeing the boys enjoy 
themselves, of sharing in and promoting their joys, 
of meeting them in their walks, of hearing the 
last new discovery, of laughing at or seconding 
the last new plan, of playing their games, of oiling 
the hinges of old bones with a little of the fresh- 
ness of young hearts, all would be gone. All the 
light of the place would vanish, and a suspicious 
isolation be left. Or perhaps an unnatural appe- 
tite for mere intellectual prizes, with a proportionate 
contempt for the more numerous but less fortunate 
mediocrities, would alone remain. Everything hu- 
man, in fact, must disappear, and the big-headed, 
ill-tempered dwarf, pure intellect, reign in his 



152 ED VGA TION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. X. 

dreary kingdom. Better be the most wretched little 
boy he wishes to squeeze into book-covers, illus- 
trate with wood-cuts, and put on his shelves, than 
the dreary potentate himself. You are avenged, O 
much-beflogged youngster. You will escape, but 
your gaoler is a gaoler to the end of time. 



CHAPTER XI. 

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of 
success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life. 
Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts, made by 
successive generations of men, the little bits of knowledge and ex- 
perience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a 
mighty pyramid. Though many of these facts and observations 
seemed in the first instance to have but slight significance, they are 
all found to have their eventual uses, and to fit into their proper 

places. 

Smiles, Self Help, chap. iv. 

The main plan of a great school has now been 
sketched, and it presents a formidable array of 
requirements. Numbers of able men, large build- 
ings, numerous branches of knowledge, with place 
and instruments for each, numerous occupations 
and amusements, with place and means for these 
also, besides all the risk of failure that very com- 
plex functions carried on by many different men 
involve. There must be between 200 and 300 boys 
in the school. Every set of twenty-five boys or 
thereabouts must have a master allotted to it for 
its main work, exclusive of the extra subjects and 



154 ED UCATIOX [Chap. 

their masters, and every boy must have a study or 
room to himself. These are not mere assertions, all 
of them have been proved, excepting the necessity 
for having numbers at all. But numbers are neces- 
sary for many reasons, some of which shall now be 
stated. To a certain extent the whole theory of 
training boys for life would fall to the ground at 
once, if there are not a considerable number collected 
together. But there are several considerations which 
tend to fix on an intelligible basis what the numbers 
should be. These considerations belong principally 
to the teaching department. A class can easily be 
too small; gradations and variety are wanted, the 
stimulus of face sharpening face must be supplied. 
Deadness and a stagnant level of exertion falls on 
a small class, as different from the spring and elas- 
ticity of real living power as can well be conceived. 
The curious effect numbers have in exciting the 
mind, from the feeling apparently of united force 
and sympathy, is well known. The actual number 
a class ought to consist of will depend on experience ; 
experience must show how many a competent man is 
able to teach with advantage. Twenty-five has been 
named here as the result of careful experience ; but 



XI.] AND SCHOOL. 155 

the numbers of the school will depend principally 
on the number of classes. There is a still greater 
necessity that there should be classes enough in a 
school, than that there should be numbers in a class. 

The ages of boys in the great schools range from 
ten to nineteen years. This furnishes as good a 
measure as anything can do. There should at least 
be as many classes as there are years to be dealt 
with. Not that the boys will fall into their places 
according to age, but practically what can be learned 
in a year is quite sufficient to necessitate a new 
class. There ought to be no abrupt breaks in the 
work : the work should pass onwards and upwards 
by as imperceptible a transition as possible. It is 
very injurious being compelled to mass together in 
the same class, boys who are too far separated from 
each other in attainments. And it is scarcely less inju- 
rious to have clever boys running too rapidly through 
a few classes (as they must do where there are only 
a few classes), without staying long enough in each 
to get its special grounding properly, until they 
arrive at the head class, when they are apt to think 
the end of the world is come, and do little more. 

It results from this that eight or ten classes at 



156 ED UCA TIO N [Chap. 

least are necessary in any school that undertakes to 
educate boys whose ages range from ten to nineteen. 
It becomes evident from these statements, some of 
which will be dealt with more fully further on, that 
a great school is a very costly thing, too costly for 
there to be very many with advantage. The boys 
cannot be boarded in less than eight or ten houses. 
In fact, the necessary buildings and appurtenances 
alone must be put down at no less a sum than £40,000 
or £50,000, and may very easily take double as 
much. Besides this there must be a large sum for 
Scholarships and Exhibitions, or it will not be pos- 
sible to keep up the school. This appears very 
startling ; but both the arguments on which this 
result is based will bear the strictest investigation, 
and also experience will confirm them. That is to 
say, if any inquirer will really set himself to make 
out clearly what he wants to find in a school, and 
is not contented with the chance of a prize in a 
lottery, inexorable necessity will force him at last to 
stand face to face with these wants and these re- 
quirements. 

But the case is not so bad as it seems. The 
keystone of the whole fabric is the necessity of 



XI] AND SCHOOL. 157 

training boys of all ages. If this necessity is re- 
moved, the question becomes much simplified. The 
problem that has to be solved presents itself in this 
form. Make a school with a moderate foundation 
self-supporting and effective. The difficulty that at 
present exists is this. All or almost all the small 
foundations are absolutely compelled by their sta- 
tutes, or at least supposed by them, to train scholars 
for the universities. That is, to keep their boys 
until eighteen or nineteen years of age. But how 
can a headmaster and an undermaster really teach 
the eight or ten classes which are as necessary in a 
school of all ages which numbers thirty as in one 
which numbers 200 ? It is simply impossible. But 
the impossibility lies in the ages of the boys. If 
there are but 25 boys in a school, and their ages 
range from ten to nineteen, the disparity between 
the first and the last will be as great as if there 
were 250. And the number of separate bits of 
teaching will be as great. But if twenty-five boys 
reading the same books can be taught by one man 
as well or better than one boy, then the having to 
teach one boy only involves, if it is done, the loss of 
funds resulting from the non-payment of the twenty- 



153 ED UCATION [Chap. 

four, who might be taught at the same time by the 
same man. In fact, one boy on this plan costs as 
much as twenty-five boys, as far as teaching is con- 
cerned, even if he was taught as well, which can 
rarely be the case. For up to a certain point a 
master's interest, as well as a boy's, is greatly height- 
ened by a fair number, and his teaching improved. 

The having a few boys then of very different 
ages means no funds for many classes, though many 
classes are wanted ; means also inferior teaching and 
learning if the classes existed; but, as the classes do 
not exist, it means a jumble of unequal workers, in 
which no one gets his own needs attended to, or can 
do so, from the nature of things, unless he is the 
fairy horse and eats up the portions of the killed. 
Thus extremes meet, and too great numbers and toft 
small have exactly the same effect practically in pre- 
venting the individual from being taught, the one 
because there are too many boys to each master, the 
other because there are no masters for a few boys. 

But all these difficulties vanish at once if such 
schools are allowed to limit the age of their pupils, 
to thirteen years say. This at once reduces the 
number of classes, and multiplies in equal proportion 



XI.] AND SCHOOL. 1 59 

the power of the masters. Instead of the six masters 
really wanted (but never existing) for the twenty- 
five or thirty unequal boys, one master can now do 
the work perfectly, do it really well, and for even a 
greater number of little boys of the same age and 
attainments. But this is not the only advantage 
gained. Much of the school work is on a less ex- 
pensive scale. There is less wear and tear. The 
buildings need not be so large or fine, or the play- 
grounds. But, above all, the difficulty of jDroviding 
masters is mueh diminished, and their life a much 
less trying one in every way. All the most serious 
temptations and vices are at once removed, and the 
government becomes of a less arduous and anxious 
description, with much less risk of failure. Three 
moderate, but good sensible men can work efficiently 
and well, a school of little boys, which could not be 
worked by less than six if the ages were unequal. 
In fact, it is not too much to say, that a real pre- 
paratory school, in which every boy is under thirteen 
years of age, does not require more than half the 
power to carry it on effectively that a school of all 
ages would do. 

And it can be carried on effectively however 



160 EDUCATION [Chap. 

small the numbers may be, whereas small numbers 
bring no lightening of the burden of the other, as 
the number of classes is not diminished by there 
being but few boys to each class. This will not, 
however, much diminish the expense of present 
schools, for the simple reason that they are now 
being paid for what they try to do and ought to 
do, but are unable to do. The expense will not 
be diminished, but the work will be done. Little 
boys require as good food, as much sleeping room 
and study room, and as unceasing care and teaching, 
as their elders. It is a great mistake to suppose 
that because a boy is young, there can be any satis- 
factory saving in these important items. Good men 
are wanted; and no one probably will assert that 
it is reasonable to expect a man of ability and 
heart to undertake and carry through so serious and 
incessant a work without a good income. Taking 
into consideration the education required in a mas- 
ter, the cost of that education, the varied and im- 
portant character of the work, the capital required 
to conduct it well, the risk of failure, the fact that 
success cannot be passed on to a master's children, 
as his interest perishes with himself, and only 



XL] AND SCHOOL. 161 

lasts for him as long as lie is in good health and 
strong, it will be admitted that honest work well 
done by responsible men deserves no grudging pay- 
ment, even where there are Foundations giving some 
security against ruin. No reward can be too much 
for first-rate work when it is done. 

But in the case of a great school it is not a re- 
ward simply, but a necessity. The strain of body and 
mind from thorough first-class work amongst human 
beings, makes many relaxations, which are ordinarily 
luxuries, a matter of absolute need to the man of 
high and subtle work : if withheld, the work suffers. 
The man of fortune goes to the sea-side because 
he likes it, the overworked man because he must. 
To use a homely similitude, you cannot groom and 
house a racer like a cart-horse, and expect him 
to race. The human racer cannot possibly do his 
work as such if he is tied down to one place, pressed 
by one dull unchanging routine, and perpetually in 
conflict with sordid cares. 

However, let the public judge. In the long run 
they are the sufferers or gainers. The supply will 
doubtless equal the demand ; but political economy 
unfortunately gives no guarantee that the demand 

11 



1 6 2 ED VGA TION [Chap. 

shall be for the right thing. It makes a considerable 
difference what is demanded. Fathers may demand 
first-rate teachers in words, and men they will always 
get, but unless their demand is made in very deed 
and truth, first-rate teachers they will not get. The 
men, if ambitious, will carry their trained powers to 
the professions which give money, or honour, or both ; 
if religious, will go to parishes where the heart is 
satisfied by a more visibly direct religious work. 
They will not be schoolmasters. 

It will be much if good work is made possible 
where now it is not possible. If the whole level of 
English educational power can be raised, no mean 
result will be attained. This can certainly be done 
by allowing all the small foundations to limit their 
pupils to a certain age, and then devote their exhi- 
bitions to the sending the best boys to any finishing 
school the parents may select. 

This latter question, however, belongs to the pro- 
per expenditure and management of the available 
funds ; and this is a simple matter. A school can 
always be made self-supporting where there is a 
sufficient inducement to keep up a supply of board- 
ers. Whenever there is a foundation this can be 



XL] AND SCHOOL. 1 63 

done to some extent. In large towns and cities the 
schools ought to be exclusively schools for day- 
scholars, because a large town is of itself destructive 
to that free system without which a good boarding- 
school cannot exist: nothing therefore which is here 
said affects a city school. A city requires the cheap- 
est possible teaching for all those who are tied to 
the spot, and has nothing to do with the other 
branches of training, as the boys should live at 
home. 

But in all cases the masters should be paid by 
their work. There should be no fixed salaries. Any 
system that is to work well over a series of years 
must be constructed with a view to the powers of 
average men under average circumstances. This 
principle necessitates the paying the masters ac- 
cording to the work done, as wearing work is never 
exacted in other professions under any other con- 
ditions. But the best way of paying masters ac- 
cording to their work, is to make them earn their 
own incomes by taking boarders. This ensures that 
the teaching shall be good, otherwise no boarders 
will come ; and that the superintendence shall also 
be good as far as it can be insured, for the same 

11—2 



164 EDUCATION [Chap. 

reason. It relieves the foundation also from all 
money payments in salaries, or nearly all, as small 
guarantees for beginners, and rent-free houses would 
be found quite sufficient. 

The main funds of the foundation in all cases 
should be devoted to scholarships and exhibitions. 
In the case of the great schools these exhibitions 
should be, if possible, to any College at either Uni- 
versity. In the case of the preparatory schools to 
any finishing school the parents may select. The 
school at Dorchester is on this plan. The effects of 
this are manifold. First of all, it is practically 
doubling the foundation; for the boarders supply 
the funds necessary for carrying on the actual school- 
work both for themselves and the day scholars; the 
latter getting a good school instead of a bad one, 
or none at all, and the former the chance of help at 
the University in common with the day-scholars. 
This plan gives the same free education to the day- 
scholars that they would have had before, only of a 
much better character, which the new boarder- 
foundation supplies, whilst both parties have an 
equal chance of attaining the exhibitions. In many 
instances the local funds cannot support a school 



XI] AND SCHOOL, 1 65 

on any other basis. If they can, close exhibitions 
are an acknowledged curse. A little money for 
three or four years cannot compensate for the life- 
long loss entailed by worse education and a lower 
standard of work. But most of the small grammar- 
school foundations would cease to be grammar- 
schools altogether from inability to support sufficient 
masters and a proper school, if this plan were not 
pursued. There are not wanting instances of masters 
without schools even now. But a few exhibitions 
draw out the power necessary to support the school, 
thus giving the locality its free schooling, which 
otherwise it would not get, without depriving the 
day-scholars of the chance of the exhibitions either. 
It is not too much to say that every pound thus 
spent in prizes to the successful, elicits ten to carry 
on the general education for all. Moreover, it is no- 
torious that the giving away of exhibitions as a sort 
of local alms, pauperises the morals and intellects, if 
the expression may be used, of the recipients, and 
tends to degrade instead of raise a neighbourhood. 

If however the actual education of the district in 
which the school is situated is carried on by the 
boarder-foundation, the district clearly can have no 



1 66 EDUCATION [Chap. 

exclusive right to the exhibitions as well as to this. 
One is theirs, but not both. If the foundation funds 
pay for the school-work, there can be no exhibi- 
tions ; if for exhibitions, without boarders there can 
be no school. The boarders form a second founda- 
tion to all intents and purposes, with claims on the 
original foundation coextensive with the benefit they 
confer, and the addition they make to its working 
power and funds. Wherever the funds derived from 
boarders play as great a part, or greater, in the 
efficiency of the work as the funds derived from 
the original foundation, there can be no just claim 
in the old foundation to override the new founda- 
tion, for such it is. This leaves undisturbed the 
whole question of the advantage of having a good 
school instead of a bad school, or in many cases no 
school at all of the kind originally intended. Nei- 
ther is the question affected by the fact, that in 
some instances the funds have been diverted from 
a lower class of school to make a higher class. This 
may be wrong in such instances, but the majority 
of cases are not of this character, and some of those 
that seem to be, only seem so, not because the in- 
tended teaching has changed its character, but be- 



XL] AND SCHOOL. i6j 

cause a different class now takes advantage of that 
teaching. However that may be, as long as the 
small foundations are compelled by their statutes, or 
local opinion, to send boys direct to the University, 
so long the preparatory schooling of England will 
be what it is. What it is will never be known 
until a different state of things has become possible. 
No one can work without tools. And how to pro- 
vide effective education must always be the most 
vital question a nation can deal with, as it is the 
most vital question a family can deal with. 

The foundations cannot do their work if impossi- 
bilities are expected from them, or if the ignorance 
and bigotry of those who deal with them impede 
their free action. No one is so high as not to be be- 
nefited by a good school ; if it makes those beneath 
him better, it is a blessing to him ; no one so low as 
not to be reached by its influence; if it makes those 
above him better, it is a blessing to him. And if 
Cobbett's dictum is worth anything, that the man 
who makes two ears of corn grow where one grew 
before, is a benefactor, surely it can be no slight 
matter to try whether it is not possible to do the 
same good office for education, and to double and 



1 68 EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. XI. 

treble the power of almost every foundation by de- 
manding from each the work it can do and no more, 
and giving each the means of doing that in the best 
way, by applying the funds so as to draw out a 
maximum of work with the least waste of material; 
remembering always that no work can be done 
without tools. 



CHAPTER XII. 

After his glorious victory, the dying general was being carried 
on a litter to the boat of the Foudroyant in which he died. He 
was in great pain from his wound, and. could get no place of rest. 
Sir John Macdonald (afterwards adjutant-general) put something 
under his head. Sir Ralph smiled and said, "That is a comfort; 
that is the very thing. What is it, John ? " " It is only a soldier's 
blanket, Sir Ralph." " Only a soldier's blanket, Sir," said the old 
man, fixing his eye severely on him. " Whose blanket is it?" "One 
of the men's." "I wish to know the name of the man whose this 
blanket is ;" — and every thing paused till he was satisfied. " It is 
Duncan Roy's of the 42nd, Sir Ralph." "Then see that Duncan 
Roy gets his blanket this very night;" and. wearied and content, 
the soldier's friend was moved to his death bed. "Yes, doctor," 
said Lord Dunfermline, in his strong earnest way, "the whole ques- 
tion is in that blanket — in Duncan getting his blanket that very 

night." 

Eorae Suhsecivae, page 281. 

The question of the theory and living power of a 
school has now been dealt with in some degree. 
The next subject that claims attention is the ma- 
terial machinery needed. Machinery, up to a cer- 
tain point, is everything. No bravery, no strength, 
can make a stick a match for a rifle. But so it 



170 EDUCATION [Chap. 

is in all things. As long as the man with the rifle 
is awake, the man with the stick has no chance. 
And we certainly should not compliment a person 
who, having engaged to kill a lion, let him loose, 
and went at him with a pen-knife. First cage your 
lion, then perhaps even a pen-knife may slay him. 
But a cage is, after all, only a few bars in a satis- 
factory situation. Machinery is everything up to 
a certain point. No ability, no zeal, no holiness, no 
intellect, no law, can overcome the disadvantages of 
working without machinery. The first thing the 
living power does, wherever it exists, is to destroy 
the external barriers that confine good, and render 
good impossible, and reconstruct in such a way as 
to confine evil as much as possible. 

First, then, the question of houses presents itself 
in treating of the machinery necessary for a great 
school. It has already been proved that large, open 
dormitories and common halls are inadmissible for a 
great school. It is not meant by this to assert that 
they ought not to exist. If there are not funds 
enough to do more, it is far better to have them 
than to have nothing ; far better that boys should 
go to such schools than not be taught at all ; but 



XII.] AND SCHOOL. 171 

they should be estimated at what they really are — • 
makeshifts, and not be mistaken for what they are 
not. 

In every great school each boy must either 
have a small study to himself and a compart- 
ment in a small dormitory, or a single room, in 
which to live and sleep. A large dormitory in- 
troduces far too great opportunity for undetected 
evil. The number of cubic feet required for each 
boy in the two plans is about the same, and the 
expense of providing either about the same. Which 
then is the best system? There can be no doubt 
that the study and compartment system is the best, 
for the following reasons. The single room can- 
not be so healthy. It cannot be good for a boy 
to be day and night in the same small room ; too 
small for satisfactory ventilation, and with his bed 
there always. Then the bed is either shut up, in 
which case it is not aired properly; or open, in 
which case it takes up too much of the sitting- 
room, and is untidy. The single room also gives 
too much opportunity for the boys to congregate 
together indoors, which makes bullying easy, and 
is fatal to pure air. The single room also is likely 



172 EDUCATION [Chap. 

to be untidy, for as the boy sleeps there, the day- 
life articles will have to be shifted daily to make 
room for his sleeping arrangements. A boy can- 
not fit up and arrange his room permanently, and 
leave it arranged. Whereas the dormitory com- 
partment is quite separate from the study. It is 
never entered excepting at bed-time, and therefore 
enjoys the advantage of being perfectly aired all 
day. It is in itself private, but being part of a 
larger room, derives all the benefit of this in better 
ventilation, as in a room of fair size fresh air can 
always be introduced quietly. The little study, 
moreover, cannot from its size admit of a crowd, 
and from its size can more easily be protected by 
law as a boy's own domain. The hall of the house 
supplies a place of common meeting. In the study 
nothing need be moved excepting at the will of 
the owner, who can arrange it according to his 
taste, and keep it so arranged. These things may 
seem slight, but the happiness of life turns on them ; 
they are Duncan Roy's blanket, which though but 
a blanket, is certainly a matter of misery, or rest, 
at the time, and may be a matter of life or death, 
and was not beneath the dying General's care. 



XII.] AND SCHOOL. 1 73 

The kind of life is determined by the blanket or 
no blanket ; and the kind of feeling of superiors, 
by its being noticed or unnoticed. Each boy should 
accordingly have his own study and his own sleep- 
ing compartment. 

But again, exactly the same principle that abo- 
lishes the large, open dormitories and common halls, 
will decide against building the boarding-houses in 
one great quadrangle, or stack of buildings, like a 
college, instead of separating them. The character 
of the school, of its management, its spirit, its life, is 
affected by this decision in an extraordinary degree. 
Probably every one, at first sight, would answer posi- 
tively, if asked, " Of course, build the houses together 
like a college. It is far cheaper; it produces a far 
finer effect to the eye; it is majestic; it is grand; 
it is, &c. ; it is the ideal of a school." It may be 
all this, even the &c, but — it works badly. Dire 
experiencs will force the reluctant conviction on 
working men that scattered boarding-houses are 
not only better, but enshrine a different life and a 
higher life. The principal reasons are these. In 
the college plan, to call it by that name, the pri- 
vate and domestic character of the life is merged 



174 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

and lost in the public body and its life. And 
this means a great deal. It means an entirely dif- 
ferent and rougher character of existence. In the 
college plan the power of combination for evil is 
very great, the circle is too wide for the same in- 
dividual interest to be taken, authorities clash, and 
boys are more free to do wrong. 

In a house by itself, all this is altered. A small 
number of boys are knit together in a little common- 
wealth. The house-master and his wife have the 
entire management, subject to the main school laws. 
No other authority or power, whether of boys or 
masters, interferes with their own little kingdom. 
Theirs is the credit or discredit, quite unaffected by 
the good or the bad habits of others. They take, 
naturally, under these circumstances, a great interest 
in their house, for it is their own, unmixed with 
any other influences. They can, and do, become 
very intimate with their boys, and their boys with 
them. In fact, it is to both parties a home, and 
there is a home influence and home refinement 
about it. The management is more easy, for the 
boys are not numerous, and cannot shift the blame 
of evil on others, or band together with them. There 



XIL] AND SCHOOL. 175 

is no divided authority, and no doubtful jurisdiction. 
The boys, on their part, love their own house and 
uphold it. It has a character which they are 
jealous about. They rejoice at their house being 
distinguished in school ; they rejoice in its tri- 
umphs out of school. In the games, house plays 
house in friendly rivalry, and great amusement and 
much vigorous life is the result, an esprit de corps 
of the most healthy kind. Moreover, in this nar- 
rower circle the influence of the ladies of the school 
and their care becomes very appreciable. Any one 
may sneer at this who chooses, but somehow or 
other no one sneers when his own blanket has been 
taken. The home feeling becomes real, . many more 
opportunities for kindly intercourse arise, and both 
in sickness and health the boy-life is gentler and 
more civilized. All this takes place without the 
slightest diminution of the unity of the school, or 
its combined power for good. The home circle only 
interferes with evil and rough useless wretchedness, 
or rebellion. There is plenty of common life, plenty 
of public interest, thoroughly to make the school 
one ; to bind it closely together, and weld it into one 
body, without in the slightest degree breaking in on 



176 ED UGATION [Chap. 

the domestic character and valuable responsibilities 
of the separate houses. Two opposite and most ne- 
cessary principles are both secured by this system; 
the civilization and gentler feelings of comparative 
home, with all the hardy training of a great school. 
The common classes, the common games, the com- 
mon school honour at the Universities, and in the 
world, bind the boys closely; nothing is lost in this 
way ; whilst the narrower circle of the separate 
house ensures a more kindly and careful treatment 
than would otherwise be possible. 

With respect to the number of boys that each 
house ought to take, this practically is decided at 
once by the size of the classes ; because although a 
master might possibly be able to attend to a few 
more boys in his house than he could teach in school, 
the plain question rises at once, What is to be done 
with the surplus? For as soon as a house contains 
more boys than the house-master can teach, all above 
that number are thrown on the school without a 
teacher. A supernumerary master or two may indeed 
be appointed without boarders, if there are funds 
to pay them, but this will not allow any consider- 
able margin of boys beyond the class-number in a 



XII.] AND SCHOOL. T77 

large school, and can only be viewed as a tempo- 
rary arrangement, a probationary trial of a master's 
fitness before he is entrusted with full responsi- 
bility ; or as giving him time before he embarks in 
a serious engagement; and in this way may work 
very well to a limited extent. Or there may be 
with advantage two or three boarding-houses taking 
half numbers, thus relieving the school classes in 
some degree, and forming a stepping-stone for the 
master who manages each. In this way some ten 
or twelve good houses are required, the majority 
taking not more than thirty boys, each boy with his 
study and sleeping compartment complete; and two 
or three houses, each taking fifteen boys, to make 
the beginning less expensive and hazardous. For 
many a deserving man may lack funds to establish 
a house at once, and it is also a hard thing to dis- 
miss a master who has established himself at much 
expense ; though indeed in a good system the house 
itself turns him out, refusing to support a man who 
is not faithful in his work. 

Besides the houses, a large school-room is an ab- 
solute necessity, not for the class teaching, but as 
the common meeting-room of the school. Higher 

12 



178 ED UGATION [Chap. 

classes are always better taught in separate rooms. 
A few of the lower classes indeed may be taught 
with advantage in one room, as it gives a greater 
impression of discipline and law to little boys. But 
& large room for all to assemble in is wanted to 
make the unity of the school felt ; where too they 
are ready to receive any orders, to be spoken to 
when necessary, to hear any announcements of ho- 
nours gained, or of holidays, or punishments, praise 
or blame ; and also where on the great school occasions 
the friends and parents of the boys can be worthily 
received. As to class-rooms, though it is good to 
have them all in one building, it is not absolutely 
indispensable ; as in the boarding-house system, each 
dining hall can be a class-room and pupil-room, and 
is quite satisfactory as such. 

There is one more great building needed, a 
Chapel. For though a school ought by no means to 
be a vehicle of party opinions, still less ought it to 
be at the mercy of party opinions; which is the case 
if the boys are compelled to attend the parish 
church, whoever the clergymen may chance to be, 
or how r ever often changed; and however painfully 
the building itself may fall short of being a fit 



XIL] AND SCHOOL. 1 79 

place of worship. Neither ought the religious life 
of the school to be put on one side, and the secu- 
lar on the other. There can be no such separation 
in healthy practice wherever the whole training of 
the heart, mind, and body is undertaken. At all 
events, when there is a chapel, and the entire control 
is in the hands of the masters, parents know what 
they are about, and there is no conflict of opinions in 
the school management, the school-master teaching 
one thing and the clergyman another ; the worst 
evil almost that can befall any place where training 
is the object. 

Besides these more important buildings, provision 
ought to be made for a School Library, Museum, 
Workshop, Gymnasium, Swimming Baths, Fives 
Courts, or any other pursuits that conduce to healthy 
life. All or some of them should exist in a great 
school. And this is not unimportant. The welfare 
of the majority greatly depends on something being 
provided to interest every kind of disposition and 
taste. Plenty of occupation is the one secret of a 
good and healthv moral life: and schools under- 
take to train. 

The thin edge of the wedge is recognized in all 

12—2 • 



180 EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. XII. 

schools by the fact of a Cricket-ground being pro- 
vided, but there is no principle on which the cricket- 
ground exists, which does not equally call for the 
existence of amusements and occupations for those 
who do not play cricket. No great school will be 
without many different appliances for securing the 
interest, and gaining a hold over all the boys who 
may be entrusted to it to be trained. Training 
means, everybody learning how to use time well. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



On starting, he said, "John, we'll do one thing at a time, and 
there will be no talk." 

This short and simple story shows, that here, as everywhere else, 

personally, professionally, and publicly, reality was his aim and his 

attainment. 

Preface, page xxvi. Home Subsecivae. 



It seems necessary here to enter into a question 
of management, which is important enough, but 
is not entirely a house question ; as to whether the 
houses shall be simply boarding-houses, that is, the 
house-master having nothing to do with the boys 
in his house as a teacher; or whether each house- 
master shall also be the private tutor of the boys 
in his house, and teach them in the out-of-school 
hours. 

If the house-master is a private tutor also, it 
means that he has two kinds of work entirely dis- 
tinct to attend to. He has in that case to attend 



\I\ 



182 EDUCATION [Qui 

to his public work in the school-classes, which are 
composed of pupils from all the houses. 

And he has to attend to his private-pupil work 
in his own house-classes, which are composed of 
the boys in his own house only. 

And the work of the boys is of this same double 
character. It is made up of the school- work in the 
mixed school-classes, and of the pupil-room work, 
with their own tutor's pupils only. 

There are many important results from this state 
of things, the most practical of which shall be stated. 

First of all, as the boys in a house are of all 
ages, and in all parts of the school, the tutor in 
his pupil-room is really working a miniature school 
single-handed. It becomes a necessity also that 
every master throughout the whole school, if effi- 
cient, should be able to teach the highest classes 
in the school as well as the lowest, for his pupils 
will be in all classes. 

Every master's success will depend upon his 
own pupils. If they do well, he is popular, and 
his house is filled ; if not, it is not filled. The 
pupil-room work accordingly, and the work of his 
clever boys, becomes exceedingly important to a 



XIII] * AND SCHOOL. 183 

master. But in school and in the public work the 
classes are mixed, and little credit results to a 
master for doing the school-work well, as the boys 
come from different tutors' houses, and the credit 
of success goes to the tutor. The school-work and 
public work therefore is comparatively unimportant 
to a master. This tendency is intensified exceed- 
ingly if there is any public Scholarship or Exhi- 
bition awarded by an examination in general scho- 
larship, which is the standard of success in the 
school. 

The rivalry between the pupil-rooms, or rather 
miniature contesting schools, becomes great, and 
the work done in common, small in proportion. 
For the boys, in their eagerness to outstrip each 
other, think little of the common work, where all 
have an equal chance, but prize exceedingly the 
private work, where each thinks he can get a start, 
and outstrip his rivals. 

But the common work absorbs time. 

Thus, as far as teaching is concerned, there is no 
common interest in such a school whilst the boys 
are at the school. The interests of the pupil-rooms 
so far from being identical, are antagonistic. 



1 84 EDUCATION [Chap. 

The tutor is put in exactly the same position 
that the head-master of a small foundation finds 
himself in. He has a number of boys of very 
various ages and attainments to deal with, and 
must accordingly have a number of classes. This 
is a great waste of power. 

It is not possible either for a head-master to 
appoint the under-masters, with a view to their 
teaching special classes. Every master must be 
capable of teaching every class. Yet until some 
happy era dawns when teaching shall be recognized 
as the wonderful science that it really is, it is very 
difficult to give due honour to the lower classes, or 
to get men full of knowledge, but empty of skill, 
to teach them well. The knowledge-men ask for high 
classes, if, indeed, anything is high in a school ; and 
" honour " comes to mean having charge of the up- 
per classes. Though, indeed, it is more mortifying 
sometimes to a really thoughtful man to see his 
favourite ideas caricatured by the upper boys, than 
to put forth what cannot be spoiled to the lower 
boys. Thus men come to consider promotion to 
be the getting away as fast as possible from the 
most skilled teaching work. It is so much easier 



XIIL] AND SCHOOL. 185 

to know a thing than to teach it, so much more 
flattering to self-love to rail at ignorance than to 
try and correct it, that it is no wonder if the 
knowledge-men endeavour to escape from the mor- 
tification of that crucial test of teaching skill, a 
low class ; and it is no slight condemnation of the 
private tutor system, that under it skilled teachers 
are shut out from the school unless they are full 
of knowledge also. 

One remarkable and very noteworthy result, 
however, of the system is this. A boy remains 
with the same tutor during the whole time he is 
at the school, and the main work is done in the 
pupil-room. Hence it follows that each tutor's work 
is to a great degree independent, and not affected 
by that of his colleagues. Their work may be bad, 
but if his own is good, that does not matter much 
to him, he nourishes. His pupils will win honours 
in spite of it, and these are set down by the public 
as belonging to the school. In this way it might 
happen that all the teaching in the school should 
be inefficient except his own, and yet he might 
be successful enough, though a mere fraction of 
the whole, to gain very considerable reputation for 



1 8 6 ED U CATION [Chap. 

scholarship and work both for the school and him- 
self. This is a great element of strength from the 
school-point of view. The public judges the school 
by the University Honour Lists, and one house 
out of many with its picked pupils can win enough 
honour to satisfy the public, and the numbers of 
the school will flourish in consequence. The oppo- 
site side of the picture is, that if a boy, from any 
cause, is put under a bad tutor, he is practically, 
as far as teaching is concerned, at a bad private 
school all his time. For the public work does but 
little to remedy a bad pupil-room, as has already 
been shown. 

But if the houses are simply boarding-houses, and 
the house-master has nothing to do with the teaching 
of the boys because they happen to.be in his house, 
the whole constitution of the school is altered. 

Each master on this system takes one school 
class, composed of boys from any houses, as may 
chance. This class is his sole charge. He works 
the boys both in school and also out of school, 
in the same way that the tutor does his pupils. 
For the time they are the class-master's private 
pupils wherever they come from ; but the boys 



XIIL] AND SCHOOL. 1 87 

come from any house, the work is school-work, 
there are no double purposes, no double machinery 
in action. 

It results from this, that a master's whole work 
and interest is centred in one class, instead of being 
divided amongst many ; that all his time is given 
to this one set of boys and the subjects they are 
doing. 

This is a great saving of power, 

A masters success thus depends on the success 
of the school, not of his own pupil-room, and there- 
fore a very strong school-feeling rises, every one 
working heartily at the common work, and each 
and all jealously watchful that their neighbours do 
not spoil their own labour, and heartily rejoicing 
in the excellence of their neighbour's labour. For 
it is a very bitter thing to expend exceeding pains 
and zeal on a class, and then to have to pass it 
on to another, who, through his apathy, wastes this 
labour ; and not less bitter to receive up from ano- 
ther boys so imperfectly prepared, that the best 
efforts can scarcely redeem the past, or make them 
a credit to their new class-master; especially as 
the worst workers, and those who do least, gene- 



1 88 EDUCATION [Chap. 

rally make most fuss and find fault most, and most 
resent interference. The worse a master is, the less 
will he be guided. This may sometimes be anxious 
work in the school, but the public do not suffer 
by it. 

Again, the class-master, as long as the class is 
under him, is the sole teacher and manager in it ; 
all the credit is his if they do well, all the disgrace 
is his if they do badly. There is no other back to 
put the burden on. The influence this fact has on 
work is not slight. Then, too, there is no lottery 
in the choice of tutors; each boy has all the school 
can give him, passing successively through the hands 
of all the masters in turn. The school-work is all 
in all, and the school itself in consequence, is 
always open to the judgment of the world. 

Under this system it becomes possible to ap- 
point masters for special classes, and to keep expe- 
rienced teachers permanently with the lower classes. 
For the body of masters, as the class-work all dove- 
tails one into the other throughout the school, 
becomes by degrees keenly alive to the value of 
teaching versus mere knowledge, and gives it honour 
accordingly. They find the intense importance both 



XIII] AND SCHOOL. 1 89 

to the boys and themselves of the lower classes being 
thoroughly well-grounded, and therefore rate the 
men who do it proportionally. It is small conso- 
lation to them, if they get badly-prepared boys 
passed up, that the delinquent from whom they 
come, blushes, if it were possible, under the con- 
centrated honours of both Universities. What he 
can and will do with his class is the question, not 
what he can put on paper. As St Augustine ob- 
serves, a golden key is of no use if it will not 
unlock the casket, and a wooden key is, if it does. 
This is what masters in a united system discover. 
They want work with the boys, not self-glorification ; 
present work for others, not past distinction won 
for self Thus the power of teaching gradually as- 
serts itself, and receives its due, and golden keys 
are left to rub themselves complacently by them- 
selves in some happier world where glitter is wanted, 
and unlocking is not. But that world will not be a 
school in which the work of one and all goes to 
make up one piece. 

There is one important consequence, however, to 
masters from this union of powers. There is no 
possibility any more of the school appearing to be 



190 EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. XIII. 

successful through the success of one if the many 
are below par; nay, the bad work of one will be 
sufficient to affect most seriously the labour of all. 
Thus it comes to pass that what the school really 
is will be seen ; there is no screen possible by which 
a successful fraction shall hide the rest. This cer- 
tainly is so far a weakness in a school, that it ne- 
cessitates the whole school being in a state of per- 
fect efficiency. It is an arch which cannot afford to 
have its stones loose, not a wall which, if the but- 
tress next the public road is new and good, may 
be as tumble-down as possible behind, without the 
passers-by being much the wiser. Perhaps, how- 
ever, people in general will not look upon this as 
a very afflicting circumstance to them; and those 
whom it most concerns, the masters, have the re- 
medy to a great degree in their own hands. Good 
work need fear nothing. And when the w T ork is 
good there is tenfold interest in belonging to a 
working society ; there is a closer bond, a more 
enduring friendship arising out of common work, 
and common danger, and common honour. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

e ' Well, I must see whether I cannot do something to add to the 
general festivity," the merchant's son thought ; so he bought some 
rockets, wheels, and serpents, not forgetting a good supply of squibs 
and crackers, and having laid all in his trunk, he ascended into the 
air. 

What a cracldng and whizzing there was. The Turks all sprang 
up in the air with excitement at the enchanting sight till their slip- 
pers flew about their ears. Such an aerial spectacle they had never 
witnessed. There could not now be the shadow of a doubt that it 
was the God of the Turks himself who was to have the Princess. 

As soon as the merchant's son had got back into the forest with 
his trunk, he thought, "I must go into the city, just to ascertain 
what effects it produced." 

And what wonders he heard ! 

He now hurried back to the forest, to seat himself in his trunk ; 
but what had become of it 1 A spark from the fireworks had, 
through his carelessness, remained in it, so the dry wood took fire, 
and the trunk lay there in ashes. 

The poor lover could no longer fly. 

Andersen's Tales. Tlie Flying Trunk. 

The question of the main character of school-teach- 
ing claims attention. It would be out of place to 
enter into details as to how knowledge should be 
imparted, or in what manner a subject should be 
put before a class, but the principal points which 



192 EDUCATION [Chap. 

require to be kept in sight by a good teacher may- 
well be stated, for they are points of management. 
In the very foremost place comes the management 
of time. No teaching system can be good which 
does not make this one of its chief objects. No 
more valuable lesson is taught in a great school 
than this. A boy is brought from home, and its 
more desultory habits, and dependent, overshadowed 
ways, in order by degrees to learn to act for him- 
self, to be his own law, and to have a life of his 
own. Even the very fact of being separated from 
home-ties has its great significance. At some time 
or other every one becomes responsible for his ac- 
tions ; it is good to begin early that gradual breaking 
away of choking tendrils, however pleasant they may 
be,, which must come at last in one shape or another, 
and to make life gradually a thing of itself, self-sup- 
ported, and happy in its energy. A man must learn 
not to be always leaning on others; or else, in 
maturer years, all the strong supports, so loved and 
so habitual, are suddenly severed at once, either 
by the necessity of beginning professional life, or 
sometimes by death. Then, at the first going forth 
into the unknown peopled desert of new existence 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 193 

as a working man, he who is not prepared, has to 
add to that severe strain, the abomination of deso- 
lation that the sense of standing alone in the wide 
world at such an age brings, the craving anguish 
for a friendly voice or step that comes as surely 
then to the inexperienced as if the grave had sud- 
denly swallowed up their all. It is not well to 
allow the lessons of years to accumulate, until at 
last in some sad hour the concentrated pain of 
new work, new habits, new desolateness, new every- 
thing, has to be met, and no preparation made to 
meet it. It is a sort of death to learn to live alone, 
to work alone, a death to old habits of leaning on 
others, and a new life rising out of it. This, in 
some sense, school must teach. It ought to teach 
it well The management of time and the self- 
government involved in this take the foremost place 
in what is learnt. The process must of course be 
gradual, but it is essential to its taking place well 
that a certain degree of liberty shall be allowed 
in this as in all other training. This means that 
the times for preparation must not be laid down 
with the same rigid punctuality as the times for 
saying the lessons that have been prepared, but 

13 



194 EDUCATION [Chap. 

that a margin is allowed both to masters and boys 
in this matter. In other words, all the lessons 
ought to be learnt out of school; and the regular 
school hours, which are determined by inflexible 
law, must be devoted to testing what has been 
learnt. This preparation in the lower classes should 
take place under the direct superintendence of the 
class-master, who, nevertheless, has it in his power 
to relax or tighten the process as he thinks fit, 
according to the needs of the boys, their abilities, 
diligence, or idleness. Then, as a boy passes up 
the school, this pupil-room work becomes less and 
less, until in the head-class it ceases altogether, and 
results only are looked to by the master. In this 
way a boy is taught by degrees to arrange his own 
time, to resist the temptation to play when he 
ought to work, and to get the principle of work 
in himself, instead of its being a mere matter of 
compulsion and external force. Above all, the great 
evil is avoided of treating all the boys in a class 
as if they were cut to the same pattern, and as- 
signing in consequence exactly the same time to 
all to learn the same lesson. Obviously they do 
not all want the same time. Some want more, 



XIY.] AND SCHOOL. 1 95 

some want less. And whilst it is injurious to the 
quick boy to keep him back when he thinks he 
is ready, wasting his time, and inclining him to 
dawdle; it is worse still for the slow boy who can- 
not make up his deficiency by extra labour, but 
must abide by the regulation minute. The great 
stimulus too is lost of a boy seeing that hearty 
work will ensure a quicker release from confine- 
ment. It is necessary therefore to have an elastic 
rule, which shall combine even greater compulsion 
for the unwilling, with a perpetually increasing 
liberty to the willing and skilful worker. This can 
only be done by reducing the regular school-hours 
to a minimum, never making them hours of pre- 
paration, but having all the lessons prepared out 
of school at the discretion of the head-master and 
class-masters. 

Two conflicting principles have to be reconciled 
in the matter of the general drift and purport of 
the work also. There should be a clear perception 
how far it is wise to explain, and to proceed on 
the principle of making a boy thoroughly under- 
stand his lessons, and how far they should be looked 
on as a mere collecting of material and a matter 

13—2 



196 ED VCA TIOX [Chap. 

of memory. It must be borne in mind that with 
the young memory is strong, and logical perception 
weak. All teaching should start on this undoubted 
fact. It sounds very fascinating to talk about 
understanding everything, learning everything tho- 
roughly, and all those broad phrases which plump 
down on a difficulty, and hide it. Put in practice, 
they are about on a par with exhorting a boy to 
mind he does not go into the water till he can 
swim. In the first place, a certain number of facts 
must be known before any complex thing can be 
understood even by those who are capable of un- 
derstanding it. 'The emptiness of a young boy's 
mind is often not taken into account, at least 
emptiness so far as all knowledge in it being of 
a fragmentary and piecemeal description, nothing 
complete. It may well happen that an intelli- 
gent boy shall be unable to understand a seem- 
ingly simple thing, because some bit of knowledge 
which his instructor takes it for granted he pos- 
sesses, and probably thinks instinctive, is want- 
ing to fill up the whole. 

But memory is, or may be, very powerful ; the 
ease with which little children pick up language 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 1 97 

shows this ; parents do not wait till children under- 
stand everything before they teach them to talk, and 
could not if they would, because of the parrot-power 
of the child. Nature herself prescribes a wise collec- 
tion of material at first, without troubling how far it 
is understood; be sure if it interests, it is understood 
enough. This collection cannot begin too early, the 
same natural law that makes little children talk, 
makes little children have inquisitive minds, and 
power enough to take the next step too, and learn 
to read nearly as soon as they can talk well. This 
is not injurious. Injurious work is forcing the child 
to continued exertion. The mind in this is like the 
body; look at the restless activity of the puppy 
when it is not asleep, but observe every half minute 
or so it has its little rests and pauses. Look at the 
young child at play, it is the same. But take the 
puppy out a set walk, and it will probably die, 
because it cannot rest when it pleases. This is 
the law for the very young. No praise or blame 
must be used to hinder the little creatures from 
resting when they like, but within this limit let 
them have every opportunity of active exercise in 
body and mind. A good nursery library which the 



198 ED UCA TIOX [Chap. 

children may use when and how they please, asking 
no leave and under no compulsion, is an invaluable 
boon. Why should not the little restless mind have 
something to feed on? It is the doing a given 
amount of work in a given time which kills, whereas, 
by imperceptible degrees, with actual pleasure and 
no strain, a child may be allowed to acquire much 
knowledge in a desultory way. It is no effort, be- 
cause there is plenty of time. If it is not done in 
this way, the poor child at eight or ten years of age 
is expected to learn in a year or two what might 
have been spread over the four or six previous years. 
This is cram, and very useless cram too. 

The fate of too many is decided by the time they 
are twelve years old, and the stamp of mediocrity 
pressed down heavily on them. For lost time not 
only means lost knowledge, but the lost power of 
getting knowledge. Just as on a journey a man 
who slept till mid-day always, would not only be 
remaining still whilst he slept, but also getting fat 
and unable to move on when awake. It is too 
late to wish to run a race, however strong the wish 
may be, when your antagonist is not only half the 
race a-head, but you are too fat to move. 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 199 

There can be no doubt that not to give full 
opportunity of exercise to the young creature, both 
in mind and body, is as much against nature and 
nature's law, as to force it to continued action by 
injudicious severity or more injudicious praise. But 
nature instructs us thus far, that there is a perpetual 
restlessness of curiosity, combined with great capacity 
for receiving any new impressions, because they are 
new, whether understood or not, in the young, until 
art steps in and stops it, sometimes positively, by 
blaming questions which the hearers find it incon- 
venient to answer; sometimes indirectly, by telling 
the little being not to trouble till it gets older. 
Nature, however, teaches us to furnish material for 
the mind to feed on from the earliest dawn of intel- 
ligence ; those who are wise will continue to do so ; 
and at school the same process must for a time 
be continued to a great extent. The collection of 
material for work and thought is the chief object 
of all school-life, but the almost exclusive object 
of lower school-life. If a teacher sets to explaining 
in a low class, he may be the best and most lucid 
explainer that has existed since the days of Aris- 
totle, but the little boys under him will learn 



200 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

nothing, for he has forgotten the simple fact that 
there must be something to explain before a man 
can explain it, and that that something does not 
yet exist in the minds of the little boys. Their 
range is so limited that a very small thread of ex- 
planation is as much as they can bear to receive. 
Almost all the work must be collection of material. 
The memory of the young is wonderful, their logi- 
cal powers almost non-existent; but even were they 
much greater, they cannot, as has been said before, 
be exercised on nothing. It is hard to follow an 
argument in a strange language, but it is a strange 
language if nothing is known before of the facts — 
the facts and the arguments are both new, both 
keep dropping out of the mind almost before they 
are in. Fill a sieve with water and a young boy's 
mind with reasoning — the collection of material is 
the chief thing. And if boys cared to learn, that 
is to say, had any heart-belief in learning as a 
good thing, as they believe that play is a good 
thing, and man cared to teach in the same spirit, 
and parents would let them do it, why — Utopia 
would have begun. 

There is another very common mistake too in 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 201 

teachers. They forget that they are part of a system, 
and that the boys also are parts of a system; and 
whilst, so to say, running about in an aimless way, 
pulling up weeds at random, they never clear a 
little bit of ground, and hand it over clean to the 
next master. If attention was directed to getting 
rid of the worst fault first before spending time 
over others, and attention directed to getting the 
contrary bit of knowledge firmly fixed in the mind, 
instead of the teacher floating about with no definite 
aim in his teaching, much greater progress would be 
made. For work would not have to be gone over 
and over again so often, and the boy-mind would 
also learn the meaning of really knowing a thing, 
whilst quantity might still be exacted, and must 
be, in the general lesson. 

The boys ought to understand in bringing up 
a lesson, that a fault involving ignorance of a 
few pages of grammar is unpardonable, whilst it 
will rest with the judgment of the class-master 
to decide what degree of culpability there may 
be in not knowing the English of a word, or not 
being able to make out the sense of a passage. 
It is well, however, to give boys a very distinct 



202 ED U CAT ION [Chap. 

idea that they are as good judges of absolute non- 
sense as a master is, and that nonsense must be 
wrong. A simple axiom which meets with but few 
adherents practically in the boy-world. 

What has already been said has, in some degree, 
anticipated the question of the length of lessons. The 
same double principle is at work in this matter also. 
Amateurs say boldly, Let every thing be learnt tho- 
roughly. Professional men answer, with still greater 
boldness, that means, in many cases, let nothing 
be learnt at all. What is meant in most subjects 
by " learning thoroughly"? The words sound posi- 
tive and plain, but try and examine them, and they 
slip through the fingers before you can pinch them ; 
as well try and catch the flying moment, which 
everybody, from the time of Adam, has been en- 
deavouring to seize by the ear with but indifferent 
success. But a boy's idea of learning thoroughly 
is simple enough. It is this. Glance down a page, 
look out every word that seems likely to bring the 
learner into trouble — that done, the lesson is tho- 
roughly learnt. Now a school has to deal with 
boys, and their idea cannot be disregarded. As 
long as learning a lesson means the minimum ne- 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 203 

cessary to escape punishment, if the lesson is short 
the boys learn next to nothing ; if it is long, they 
cannot do it well, and may get a wrong idea of 
learning altogether. Rather an awkward dilemma, 
but a very true statement of the case to be dealt 
with. What, then, is to be done ? To avoid the 
first evil, the regular lessons should be fairly long, 
as then, at all events, material is gained ; to avoid 
the second, there should be breaks at irregular in- 
tervals in the course of work ; extra half-holidays, 
some capable of being gained by the head-class in 
the school itself, some resulting from Honours and 
Scholarships at the University, &c. This plan ena- 
bles masters and boys to keep the balance of work 
more even. The earnest boys get spare time for 
more free and independent efforts and general read- 
ing, and the masters get time to exact any short- 
comings from their idler companions, and compel 
them to make up for past neglect. 

To ensure diligence as far as possible, there 
should be examinations before the boys go home. 
This keeps the interest of the boys alive up to the 
end of the school-time, when otherwise it is apt to 
flag, tests their progress, and enables the class-master 



204 EDUCATION [Chap. 

to see what his class really has done. No one who 
has not had this experience could possibly believe 
that plain and definite facts could be repeated day 
by day in the way they can be, and not learnt. The 
power of resisting teaching must be experienced to 
be credited. It is very easy for a zealous master 
to imagine the boys are working harder than they 
are, because he feels that he is working hard. It 
is easy also for him to go over the same ground 
again and again, until he thinks his class must 
know it all, because they seem to answer fairly 
when the question recurs in a tolerably familiar 
form ; whereas an examination will often reveal 
that the boys have not really made the knowledge 
their own, and in consequence of this discovery 
the master will return to the charge again, which 
he would not otherwise have done. Thus, besides 
its effect in keeping the boys up to their work, an 
examination enables a master to find out the weak 
points of his class, and, by so doing, to direct his 
efforts consciously, and with skill, instead of shoot- 
ing in the dark. It will be well at this point to 
attempt to come to some definite principles about 
examinations and their purpose. 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 205 

It is clearly no use examining, with a view of 
finding out something which is not to be found 
out in that way. Many think an examination is 
for the purpose of finding out cleverness. But what 
is cleverness? and how is it to be discovered? No 
two persons will return the same answer to these 
questions. Gauging knowledge and gauging train- 
ing is to a certain extent definite, and can be done, 
but who is to gauge cleverness disjoined from know- 
ledge and training? Mental fireworks and their 
value are matters of opinion, and opinions vary. 
A few squibs and crackers let off at an unexpected 
height, and those too, bought, may very well pass 
for the god of the Turks, and often do so, whilst 
their possessor may be but a poor creature after 
alL Moreover, if cleverness is to be discovered, 
the examination ought to take those subjects which 
give freest scope to the powers of the examinees ; 
the examination ought to be in English, where the 
mind will be least trammelled and hampered by 
being squeezed into the strait-waistcoat of a half- 
known tongue. But all education is a training 
process, and a test for this is wanted. On this 
account examinations in Greek and Latin and Ma- 



206 EDUCATION [Chap. 

thematics are given, for these test trained know- 
ledge and the power of acquiring knowledge. 

And an examination should be conducted on 
definite principles, and be framed to prove whether 
the examinees have acquired trained knowledge or 
not. An examiner's opinion of a boy's cleverness is 
mischievous and delusive if it in any way allows 
him to be biassed on the actual facts of the papers 
done. Suppose, for instance, that instead of an 
examination in the dead languages, we were exam- 
ining a Frenchman or German in English, to test 
{Iris training and knowledge, would it not be pre- 
posterous because we thought his papers clever, to 
pass over numberless mistakes which we are "sure 
about in the language selected to try his strength? 
If he does not know the language he is examined 
in, he is either unable to master a subject with 
accuracy and power, though able to display some 
fireworks, or he has been idle ; in either case the 
trained result, which a foreign language was se- 
lected to test, is found wanting. But this is the 
question in all educational examinations. If the dead 
languages are selected in order to train, and ex- 
aminations given in them to test and reward train- 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 207 

ing, no glamour ought to be allowed to gloss over 
the want of training shown by ignorance of the 
languages which have been selected to prove this. 
Every mistake ought to be carefully noted, and 
the main decision to rest on the presence or ab- 
sence of mistakes, so far that nothing ought to be 
taken into consideration until this is settled, or 
allowed to weigh against it. This is a definite cri- 
terion, no god of the Turks ; and certainty of justice 
is the beginning and the end of an examination. 
Let either boy or man be sure that a certain and 
merciless gauge of his progress and work is going to 
be applied, and he will read in a very different 
spirit from what he will do when he has plenty of 
excuses ready beforehand about the examination 
and examiners which it is not absurd to make. 
Neither can he deceive himself if this is the case 
into imagining that a lucky chance may land him 
safe, or anything serve his turn excepting true 
work and the results of true work. The being 
able to make plausible or even possible excuses for 
failure will reduce the average of reading and hard 
work to a comparatively low water-mark. But if 
the decision is to rest on an examiner's opinion, 



208 EDUCATION [Chap. 

instead of on the actual facts of the examination, 
and the presence or absence of mistakes, excuses 
will always be made and received. The first point 
in an examination is certainty. All parties must 
know distinctly beforehand what they are to do and 
expect. The examinees should be certain that an 
examination of a given kind will take place in 
which no subterfuge will avail to conceal ignorance 
or inaccuracy. The examiner should understand 
that he is not at liberty to proceed on any other 
plan than the one laid down, to change the usual 
style of examination, or substitute his own ideas for 
the hard facts of mistakes or no mistakes. 

Another thing is necessary in order to ensure cer- 
tainty and prevent excuses. No important examina- 
tion ought ever to be in mixed subjects. When this 
is the case, unless the result in each department is 
published, the examinees shift the blame of their 
failure on to the department which they are not un- 
willing to be supposed comparatively weak in, and 
though they would feel exceedingly ashamed at hav- 
ing been known to have failed in some other branch, 
are not at all ashamed when they can assign their 
defeat to whichever subject they like to make their 



XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 209 

scapegoat. If an examination is of a mixed character, 
Mathematics and Classics, for instance, or Classics 
and History, the amount of marks attained by the 
examinees in each, ought to be published as well 
as the bare result. 

Again, in an examination to test education and 
training, the desirableness or not of a given branch 
of knowledge has little, or nothing, to do with 
its value as a subject for honour examinations. 
History, for instance, as learnt by boys and young 
men, is a most desirable and necessary branch of 
knowledge, but must be ranked very low as an 
examination subject to test training. For the fol- 
lowing reasons. If the examination is general, then 
it is a chance which of the examinees have read 
the periods from which the questions are taken; 
for no one can be supposed to know the history 
of the world with any accuracy as a young man. 
If the periods are fixed within which the exami- 
nation is to range, then the knowledge required is 
a matter of memory, which though useful is no 
great test of intellect. Indeed, to the young, his- 
tory must always be in a great degree a mere 
matter of memory, for as it deals with life and 

n 



210 EDUCATION [Chap. 

life-experience it is obvious that to expect original 
thought on this subject from those who as yet have 
no life-experience is a vain idea. They may let 
off a few mental fireworks, probably made up by 
some other thinker, and no more their own than 
the facts they have learnt by memory, but they 
can do nothing more; and if the mistake is fallen 
into of imagining other people's thoughts to be 
their own, or their own fancies about life to be 
thought, it is likely to be positively injurious. The 
value of a subject in an examination depends on 
the mental qualities it tests, and by no means on 
its desirableness as a piece of knowledge. 

Now the business of a school is to train, and 
school examinations must be framed with a view to 
test the training, partly to enable masters to see 
what is really being done, partly to act as a spur on 
the boys and keep their efforts in a right direction, 
and ensure as far as possible that they are vigorous 
and true. To do this they must be of as fixed 
and certain a character as it is possible to make 
them; and no debateable ground, no excuse-land 
left. The places should be fixed at the end of 
every school-time in this way. Every paper set 



.XIV.] AND SCHOOL. 211 

should be carefully looked over, every mistake noted, 
and marked according to a previous classification. 
When this has been done, it will be time enough 
if the mistakes are trivial, and rivals in this respect 
are equal, to look to the style of the paper and 
give some credit for this also. But if a German 
is examined in English as his test, by what process 
can mistakes in English be judged unimportant? 
He has left undone the thing he had to do. And 
if an Englishman is examined in Greek and Latin, 
by parity of reasoning, if he makes mistakes, he 
has left undone that which he was set to do, left 
undone the subject the examination was to test. 
And if the examination does not test this, which 
it can do, why have it in this form at all, which 
is a sort of make-believe if not conducted on strict 
principles ? In no case ought the impression made of 
cleverness to count against want of accurate know- 
ledge in the subject set to be mastered. True mental 
power is shown in the mind doing whatever it is set 
to do. Great minds think nothing beneath them. 
It may not be much to do, but then it is all the 
more culpable leaving it undone. The greatest 
argument of all, however, is, that an examination 

14—2 



212 ED UCA TION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. XIV. 

should test something that it really can test. "We 
do not set about measuring liquids with tape, or 
distance by bushels; so also an examination should 
measure progress in knowledge, which it can do, 
visible results of mind, and leave the mind itself 
alone, which at best can only be guessed at, and 
which no two persons guess at quite alike. Above 
all things, it is necessary for an examination to 
have the reputation of being just, certain, and not 
liable to shift by change of examiners. 



CHAPTER XV. 

From the natural course of things vicious actions are, to a great 
degree, actually punished as mischievous to society. It is necessary 
to the very being of society that vices, destructive of it, should be 
punished as being so ; which punishment therefore is as natural as 
society, and so is an instance of a kind of moral government, na- 
turally established, and actually taking place. And since the certain 
natural course of things is the conduct of Providence or the govern- 
ment of God, though carried on by the instrumentality of men, the 
observation here made amounts to this, that mankind find themselves 
placed by Him in such circumstances, as that they are unavoidably 
accountable for their behaviour, and are often punished, and some- 
times rewarded, under His government, in the view of their being 
mischievous, or eminently beneficial to society. 

Butlee's Analogy, Part I. Chap. in. 

In these days it is difficult to know whether the 
subject of punishments should be approached with 
tears or laughter. There is something so comic in 
the reaction against the old-fashioned hang — draw — 
and quarter-him process, which certainly was no 
laughing matter, that it is almost impossible to be 
grave. A school is pictured by some as a troop of 
little angels, eager to learn, more eager to imbibe 
goodness, all hanging on the lips of their still more 



214 EDUCATION [Chap. 

angelic preceptors. If these celestials ever do need 
a rebuke, shame is at once sufficient ; and shame is 
produced by a gentle but piercing glance (all school- 
masters have eyes of forty angel-power), the victim 
retires to weep in silence, until he is ready to receive 
the forgiveness the thoughtful teacher yearns to give, 
and is only waiting till the fourth pockethandker- 
chief is wetted through, to give it. 

But in sober seriousness, this very difficult ques- 
tion merits the closest attention, is full of practical 
puzzles, and cannot be disposed of lightly, whatever 
the conclusion arrived at may be. 

As a fact, a great school from time to time re- 
ceives all the evil of the worst English homes, as 
well as all the good of the best. What is to be 
done with it ? The boys are sent to be trained, the 
angelic theory obviously will not work. The easy 
way of getting rid of the difficulty is to cut the Gor- 
dian knot, and dismiss a boy directly, as soon as he 
gives real trouble. But if this is done, what becomes 
of the training? Clearly the boys who are dis- 
missed are not trained: but neither are those who 
stay behind ; for is this summary process likely to 
have a good effect when they see every difficult case 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 21 5 

got rid of instead of conquered ? Besides, boys know 
little of the future, and think less ; if the present is 
unpleasant, they are almost always ready to leap in 
the dark, that is, bad boys are : and dismissal would 
soon lose its terrors for the bad in consequence. 
Moreover, boys are very jealous about justice, and 
there is a rude, rough sense of what is just amongst 
them, that is seldom far wrong in its verdict. They 
will not consider this clearing-process justice. No 
boy ought to be dismissed from a great school until 
he has given cause for judging that the school-power 
and influence will not reclaim him. The school is 
a little world of training, because good and evil are 
in their proper positions in it, good encouraged and 
predominant, evil discouraged and being conquered, 
not because evil is rudely pitchforked out of it. This, 
if hastily done, destroys the true training-power. 
There is no doubt that the getting rid of a bad boy 
at once, without trying to train and reclaim him, 
saves masters a great deal of anxiety and a great 
deal of loss. If masters consulted their immediate 
worldly interest, they would get rid of a bad boy out 
of their houses at the first opportunity. There is 
nothing so disastrous at the time as keeping a bad 



210 EDUCATION [Chap. 

boy. As long as he is in the school unreclaimed, he 
is putting their best plans and hopes in jeopardy, 
bringing discredit on his house and class, and risking 
their reputations. The more so, because if he really 
is bad, more frequently than not, both when in the 
school, and after he leaves, he and his are vilifying 
everything there with an animosity that only dis- 
appointed evil can supply. All this protracted dan- 
ger, and occasionally heavy loss, is got rid of at once 
by the dismissal-system ; for much cannot be said in 
that case. As a part of ordinary discipline, however, 
dismissal is out of the question, as being no training 
for those who are dismissed, and giving a wrong idea 
to those who stay behind. It is not right in a master 
to escape from a difficulty in this way. And it is 
a grievous injury to the boy, if dismissal carries with 
it the disgrace it now does; a grievous wrong to 
schools, if an abuse of this power makes it cease to 
be terrible. There would still remain the question 
where the dismissed are to go, and what Norfolk 
Island is to receive them, if the practice became 
common. 

How then is punishment to be inflicted ? 

The efficacy of all punishment depends, first, on 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 21 f 

the certainty of its being inflicted ; secondly, on its 
being speedy. Severity is quite a minor point, and 
may be very much disregarded in considering the 
main question. The deterring effect of punishment 
is by no means proportionate to its cruelty. 

Certainty of punishment is the first necessity. 
On this turns very much the goodness or badness of 
a government as regards the treatment of its crimi- 
nals. An uncertain government can never be suffi- 
ciently severe, it will proceed from cruelty to cruelty, 
and nevertheless fail to terrify. Such is human 
nature ; let there be the slightest chance of escape, 
and ninety-nine men out of a hundred will run the 
risk, however great, for a very incommensurate temp- 
tation. An army is an example of this. A really 
considerable number of men are certain to be killed 
in a campaign, but, because it is uncertain who will 
be the victims, the whole number are ready to run 
the risk at a very low premium. Yet horrible pain, 
hardship, and death are the deterrent powers, and 
next to nothing the temptation. Does any one doubt 
that if a battle meant the utter destruction of the 
men engaged, they would not fight. In other words, 
certainty is at once conclusive. It acts as a complete 



2 1 8 ED UCATION [Chap. 

extinguisher ; whereas Great risk sometimes acts as 
a stimulant. But this applies to punishment equally ; 
and the difference between a good and a bad system, 
and a good and a bad master, consists in the vigi- 
lance with which wrong is detected, and dealt with ; 
the certainty of there being no escape for the wrong- 
doer. If a master is inattentive in his house and 
class, no severity will prevent his boys from being 
idle and undisciplined; or, if being attentive he is 
capricious, the result will be the same. A good 
master does not require to he severe } because he is 
certain. 

But certainty is not all; quickness of punishment 
is equally necessary. We need not look far for an 
illustration ; it is certain that all men die : but yet, 
because the time of death is uncertain, and may be 
far off, this certainty has not the slightest effect on 
the lives of most men. They live entirely forgetful 
and regardless of it. Nay, more; we often see during 
life men wantonly incur a certainty of protracted 
wretchedness for a few short years or even hours of 
pleasure. The spendthrift, for instance. The short 
time close to them, being more in their eyes than 
the long time only a little farther off. Neither the 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 219 

certainty of punishment, nor the severity of punish- 
ment, has any effect, if it is not close at hand also, 
in too many cases. Indeed, cruel and lasting punish- 
ment hardens instead of training or reforming its 
victims, without in any way benefiting society, or 
deterring others. The mind is like the body, a heavy 
blow is a terrible thing to see, but it deadens the 
nerves, and destroys feeling ; and many heavy blows 
add little or nothing to the pain of the first, they 
only kill. And with the mind too the first shock is 
fearful, but continue the shocks, and nothing is 
added but moral death, which it is not the object of 
any training to inflict. It is essential that punish- 
ment should be certain, speedy, and sharp, not cruel 
or lasting ; for however cruel or lasting the punish- 
ment will be when it comes, if it does not come 
quickly, a very slight temptation will in many cases 
entirely overbear all the remoter consequences. There 
is no accounting for such insanity, but it is the fact. 
Where fear is the only restraining motive, a severe 
punishment, a little way off, is no match for a slight 
temptation close at hand. 

There are then two great necessities m all forms 
of punishment. Punishment must be certain. Pun- 



2 20 EDUCATION [Chap. 

ishment must be speedy. Severity without this is 
always useless, with it almost always needless — a 
bungler's attempt to make up for want of power 
and influence. 

These considerations affect schools exceedingly, 
and in many ways. 

In their simplest form they amount to this. 
No school can punish in a satisfactory manner, 
where faults are likely to be overlooked and un- 
noticed, and punishment is occasional and capricious 
in consequence. 

This must always be the case where there are 
too few masters; since this gives certain impunity 
to many offences both of idleness and inattention 
in school hours, and of breaches of discipline and 
morality out of school. 

The converse of this also follows. The better 
the school, or the better the individual master, the 
less will be the punishment needed in the school 
or class. For a good master by constant watch- 
fulness, by great personal vivacity and interest, by 
making it certain that no boy will escape detection, 
and that when detected speedy punishment will 
follow, prevents misdemeanour, and makes system, 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 221 

and his own personal character and personal labour, 
act instead of the external force. 

Before, however, we proceed further, it will be 
necessary to see clearly what the object of punish- 
ment in a school is. Now, school-punishment is not 
vengeance. Its object is training; first of all, the 
training the wrong-doer; next, the training the other 
boys by his example. Both he and others are to 
be deterred from committing the offence again. 
Hence, if training is indeed the object, no useless 
punishment should be inflicted, that is, no punish- 
ment which shall not have something in it beneficial 
in the doing. But, on the other hand, no punish- 
ments can be inflicted which take up much of the 
masters' time. This cannot be wasted on offenders 
to any great extent. Tried by the first of these 
laws, the common school-punishment of setting a boy 
to write out and translate his lessons signally fails. 
It is not beneficial, but the contraiy. It is weari- 
some without exercising the mind, this is not good. 
It injures the handwriting, this is not good. It 
encourages slovenly habits, this is not good. It 
contains no corrective element, excepting that it 
is a disagreeable way of spending time ; but time 



22 2 EDUCATION [Chap. 

is very precious ; a chief part of right training is 
the teaching a right use of time ; wasting time 
therefore is not satisfactory in a good school. The 
one advantage it possesses, and that is not unim- 
portant, is this, it gives no trouble to masters, and 
does not take up their time. 

Then comes the setting extra work, but this 
does not reach far. In the first place, if a school 
is really properly provided with work, there is some- 
thing inexpressibly absurd in setting a boy to do 
more work because he cannot, or will not, do the 
work he has already. This difficulty may indeed 
be partially got over by making the work not 
strictly additional, but by compelling a boy to spend 
more time on it. But this is only a partial remedy, 
for two reasons. Beyond a certain point, and that 
a very early one, work cannot be compelled; you can 
make a boy sit in a room, but you cannot make him 
work ; an idle or obstinate boy soon reaches this 
point ; what is to be done then ? It is, moreover, 
an absolute necessity of the gravest kind that pun- 
ishments, as has been above stated, should not take 
up too much of a master's time. These two reasons 
soon bring extra work to a stand-still in bad cases. 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 223 

Learning by heart, perhaps, is the best form of 
work-punishment, as the task takes a long time to 
learn, and a short time to hear, is thoroughly useful, 
and cannot be evaded, if done at all. But, sup- 
posing it is not done, what then ? All work-punish- 
ments with an obstinate boy soon accumulate, and 
clog the wheels, till every thing comes to a dead- 
lock ; the victim cannot do the accumulated heap, 
but if he does not do it, he is conqueror, and has 
baffled the master. Thus the range of work-punish- 
ments is narrow, and their power soon exhausted 
in difficult cases. Depriving a boy of part of his 
playtime is of some use, but health again prevents 
this being pressed far. For the same reason, de- 
priving a boy of food, or putting him in solitary 
confinement, are both out of the question. Very 
heavy punishment, however, can be inflicted in a 
good school by taking away the privileges and 
liberties of the offenders. If severity by itself had 
any great power in punishment this would be 
thoroughly effectual, but it has not, as has been 
shown above ; and this kind of punishment labours 
under the defect of not being speedy enough, but 
often delayed for some time, till holidays, &c. occur. 



224 ED JJ CAT ION [Chap. 

Also, it is too protracted, it keeps a boy too long 
in disgrace, and thus tends to harden, and must 
be avoided. Still this power of deprivation is very 
effectual when wisely and sparingly used. 

All kinds of public disgrace cut away the very 
root of good punishment, destroying self-respect, and 
making criminals, not mending them. Excepting in 
rare cases, as a deterrent measure for others, rather 
than corrective to those who suffer, public disgrace 
must not be thought of. Any one who studies the 
question will find that the range of good punish- 
ments is exceedingly limited. There are but few to 
choose from, and those few sood lose their efficacy 
by repetition ; and though effectual enough in deal- 
ing with heavy and exceptional cases, they soon 
break down utterly under the daily wear and tear ; 
and cannot resist the friction of many and constant 
faults, which are simply inevitable in the complicated 
difficulties created by many untrained wills, and 
intellects requiring training. It follows then from 
what has been said, that if the school work is slack 
and loose, it is easy to punish ; as a boy who is 
virtually doing nothing can be made to do some- 
thing; or if the beneficial effect of punishment is 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 225 

disregarded, it is easy to punish, as useless tasks, 
but vexatious, can very easily be imposed. But if 
the school-work is sufficient and good, setting more 
work as a punishment is in theory absurd, and in 
practice very soon becomes impossible. In all these 
punishments also, limited as their range is, there is 
an entire want of the great element of speed and 
decisive impression. Lasting torture is no substitute 
for a single sharp impression, even if it is thought 
wise to inflict lasting torture. For the above-men- 
tioned reasons, flogging in some form or other is a 
necessity in a great school. It is certain, it is speedy, 
it is much feared, and yet soon over. 

It may be well too to bear in mind, that learn- 
ing amounts to an actual pain to many beginners, 
and unless pain is met by pain, or the possibility 
of it, the pain of learning will sometimes overcome 
all other motives in the young. 

The common argument that flogging is a de- 
grading punishment to boys will not bear inves 
tigation. 

When parents flog their children, notwithstand- 
ing the tremendous machinery of love for good, and 
of absolute and final control over all their life when 

15 



226 ED UGA TWIST [Chap. 

punishment is required, it is obvious that a master 
doing so cannot be a thousandth part so grievous to 
them. In some homes it would be degrading to a 
boy to be flogged by his parents, because it would 
be an outrage to love and honour, a breaking up 
of the sanctity of home affection. But school is 
not home ; school has its hold on the good, but it 
wants that deep and pervading tenderness of in- 
ward life, which should be the glory of home ; it 
is a place of law and righteous rule, but not a 
charmed circle of love ; it is not home ; it has not 
the home power in its might ; but many a home 
for all that is completely ruled by the young tyrants 
whom their fathers and mothers cannot manage, 
and alternately pet and fear. They are sent to 
school quite unmanageable, and unless the story is 
to be repeated over again there, must learn to sub- 
mit to lawful authority. 

Setting aside then wounded love, as scarcely be- 
longing to the cases that occur in schools, a punish- 
ment is degrading for one of two reasons. Either it 
is in itself degrading, or it is degrading on account 
of the circumstances attending it. If a flogging is in 
itself degrading, as being an outrage on the person, 



XV".] AND SCHOOL. 22 J 

it is manifest that in any society which considers an 
outrage on the person degrading, there will be a 
total absence of blows, and every kind of personal 
chastisement. How much this applies to school will 
be obvious at a glance. The idea of striking and of 
personal chastisement is of course utterly foreign to 
the boy-mind. No blows are ever struck, boy never 
punishes boy by resorting to the ready fist. Now 
all this may be, and is, in many cases, very wrong, 
but this does not affect the question under dis- 
cussion in the least — that question is, not whether 
corporal punishment is wrong, but whether it is 
degrading in itself, apart from the circumstances 
attending it. "Whoever is prepared to say it is, may 
be a very wise man, but he has never been a boy. 
No boy ever feels the least mental affliction be- 
cause he has been struck, or even kicked, by ano- 
ther boy, though the bodily affliction may be con- 
siderable, and the feelings with which the inflicter 
is regarded far from pleasant. The whole boy-life 
from beginning to end is so utterly regardless of 
inviolability of body, whether in play or earnest, 
in fun or anger, that only theorizers of mature age 
could entertain the notion of almost any form of 

15—2 



2 28 EDUCATION [Chap. 

bodily correction being in itself degrading. But 
some men never have been boys. The circum- 
stances which accompany, or cause it, may cer- 
tainly render it degrading. If received for gross 
offences, a flogging is obviously degrading; but then 
it is the offence that degrades, not the punishment. 
This is a distinction often lost sight of: as if dis- 
grace consisted in being found out and punished, 
and not rather in deserving punishment. It is dis- 
graceful to be in prison, if prison means convic- 
tion for theft; but if prison means refusal to betray 
your country, it is not disgraceful. 

Whether flogging is disgraceful or not there- 
fore obviously depends on the class of faults for 
which it is the penalty. 

There is a general floating notion that flogging 
should be reserved for grave moral offences, to brand 
them with ignominy. Let us examine this. 

It will readily be granted, that every punish- 
ment of the young should be inflicted with a view 
to correct and train either the boy punished, his 
companions, or both. And still more readily will 
it be granted, that no punishment should be need- 
lessly severe; for if there was no other reason, it 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 229 

is a waste of power. And waste of power sig- 
nifies employing means you may want for a great 
thing in a little thing; so that when the great 
thing comes there is nothing left to do; or em- 
ploying the wrong means, as using a pen-knife 
to cut sticks, it will not fulfil its daily work 
of pen-mending afterwards. 

But grave moral offences, lying, theft, &c, do not 
form part of the daily life. This is more important 
than it seems at first sight, for a daily recurring 
offence, by frequency, much increases the difficulty 
of punishing it, as punishment has to be provided 
not only with a view to a single occasional act, but 
to meet many acts and their growing power. Again, 
with the young, grave moral offences, when de- 
tected, are felt keenly and bitterly, sometimes with 
exceeding bitterness, but in all cases conscience is 
roused to aid any right corrective, and there is 
great danger that wrong measures will deaden in- 
stead of improve boys fresh to sin. The object in 
view in all such cases is to assist conscience and 
the inborn shame, and to keep the impression alive 
as long as possible ; whereas, in common punish- 
ment, the direct contrary is the case, the punish- 



230 ED UCA TIOX [Chap. 

ment impression should be over as soon as possible, 
or the effect will not be good. Protracted feeling, 
instead of sharpness, is wanted in dealing with a 
sin. Unless it is a wrong to the society, as well 
as a sin, which may therefore require public ac- 
knowledgment and atonement, what end is served 
a by a sharp and disgraceful punishment in the case 
of a boy who has sinned ? A boy, unless hardened, 
ought not to have repentance made difficult, almost 
impossible, by public disgrace. If he is fit to re- 
main in the school at all — for no school is bound to 
keep a rebel to its laws and spirit — conscience, 
and the bitterness of inward shame, makes the 
task of punishment easy, and utterly forbids public 
disgrace. A boy ought never to be allowed to think 
that masters can punish sin as they can punish in- 
tellectual or discipline faults. Unless the society- 
laws have been broken also, the flogging a boy 
for a sin as a disgrace seems utterly subversive of 
the right object of punishment, repentance; and 
unnecessary, as quiet and more protracted punish- 
ments are better, and a waste of power, as the first 
impression is strong enough without it. Ignominy 
cannot be good for heart-offences in the young in 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 23 1 

a sphere of training. On all accounts, then, flog- 
ging should not be the punishment of sins. 

The faults which principally call for the rod 
are discipline faults and wilful faults. For instance, 
when a boy persists in coming late for school; 
when a boy is impertinent ; when a boy, by wilful 
idleness, accumulates book-punishments until the 
work comes to a dead-lock. These and similar cases 
require the rod; the more so, as they are entirely 
in a boy's own power, and no one need incur 
the penalty unless he chooses. Thus, whether flog- 
ging is degrading or not, confining the punishment 
to voluntary and repeated offences removes any 
reasonable objection to it, for it becomes a boy's 
own choice; whilst offences of this sort require a 
sharp and speedy corrective, as the temptations are 
constant, and sometimes so strong as to be very 
painful to resist, and a .little counter-pain acts as 
a very salutary check. Moreover, the daily recur- 
rence of opportunity very soon makes offences of 
this kind, unless summarily disposed of, become 
impracticable to deal with. And though often in 
themselves venial, taken singly, they are utterly 
subversive of all order, rule, and training, when 



232 E DUG ATI OX [Chap. 

repeated, and the school would break up, like snow 
in a thaw, unless some decisive check is found. 
That there is sensitiveness about being cancel or 
flogged is certain, but it is bodily, not mental, 
pain that causes it, unless it is administered on 
wrong principles, and in a capricious way. Abstract 
the pain, boys would not trouble about the imagi- 
nary disgrace. If the real disgrace of shameful 
idleness, or carelessness, or repeated disobedience, 
is despised, the imaginary disgrace of a flogging 
will matter little. The theory always imagines a 
sensitive, innocent, and unlucky boy flogged, but 
the fact presents an impudent, idle, or guilty boy 
who has despised warning, as being flogged. All 
the evil of English homes comes into schools as 
well as all the good. Is there to be a school-boy 
penal settlement, where the dismissed and expelled 
are to betake themselves ? for dismissal and expul- 
sion must soon come into play, if flogging is to 
cease entirely. 

School-life is real, earnest work, both for masters 
and boys, and not a matter of rose-water theories. 
At one time or another, every evil that boys can 
do will have to be faced by the masters ; and 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 233 

every temptation that boy-life is subject to, to be 
faced by the boys. This requires a strong govern- 
ment. 

Moreover, one of the advantages of school is, 
that a boy finds himself there in a world of law, and 
order, and constitutional rights and penalties, whilst 
still surrounded by friendly and loving influences ; 
instead of under a despotic will, as at home, however 
sweetened by love, and indeed identical with it. He 
will have in after life to live by law, it is good he 
should learn to do so early, and not expect to find 
everything free from discipline, or hardship even. 
How much bitterness would be saved if the vagaries 
of undisciplined natures, which few neighbourhoods 
are without, had been checked in boyhood, when law 
could be applied to such childish ebullitions. Spoilt 
children of mature years are like grit in the wheels, 
both in society and in public life. 

For the reasons which have been mentioned, 
caning or flogging is an absolute necessity for work- 
ing the ordinary discipline of a school well. But cer- 
tain precautions should be taken against its being- 
hasty or unjust. No caning or flogging ought to be 
inflicted at the moment the offence is committed ; 



234 EDUCATION [Chap. 

or by the master under whom it is committed. The 
head-master should have the unenviable prerogative 
of inflicting it in all the more important cases. A 
lower master should be empowered to do so for petty 
offences in the lower classes. It should be inflicted 
at one stated time, and in the presence of all who 
like to witness it. These are necessary safeguards 
against temper and haste. Even where there is no 
doubt about the offence, the question often is, not 
what a fault deserves, but what is best for the culprit 
and the school. And a little reflection will often 
decide, that what is best, is an entirely different 
thing from what is deserved. Be this as it may, 
whatever are the opinions on this subject, it cannot 
be disposed of in a hurry by a whiff or a sneer. 
The whole question of punishment is full of difficulty, 
and must meet with earnest treatment from every 
wise and practical man. 

It would be easy to draw a very true and not 
very bright picture of boys, and the difficulty of deal- 
ing with them, but it is the purpose of this treatise 
to show a trainer's duty, rather than his trials. 
Nevertheless, it would be well to bear in mind that 
no words can exaggerate the spoiled nursery-tempers, 



XV.] AND SCHOOL. 235 

the selfishness, the indolence, the low morale, the 
carelessness of .consequences, the transcendent folly 
of some boys, united with a -conceit coextensive with 
their folly. The power of not learning, too, is quite 
a gift, which must be experienced to be credited ; 
the power by which boys, and not bad boys either, 
will daily be brought in contact with knowledge to 
no purpose. How, like the children's toy, the same 
rabbit is moved by the same wires, into the same 
mouth, clown to the same stomach, of the same wooden 
bear ad infinitum, always swallowed, never digested, 
a perpetual revolution of purposeless seeming feed- 
ing. It is quite certain that whatever powers of in- 
spiriting, exhortation, rebuke, or punishment it is 
wise and effective to use, will be needed in a school. 
And in the matter of punishment, practice brings 
to light that the choice of wise and effective punish- 
ment is very limited ; whilst serious mental mis- 
training may easily be brought about unawares by 
bad punishments, habits of slovenly work and haste, 
distaste for writing and reading. At all events, ex- 
ceeding waste of time is often the result, though the 
main object in life is to learn never to waste time. 
And all this takes place, because men are seeking to 



236 EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. XV. 

avoid a phantom, dressed up by popular opinion to 
be knocked down and abused. 

Grave professional questions are sure to be full of 
practical difficulties, requiring experience and know- 
ledge to estimate and deal with them. Indeed, most 
frequently, in actual life and practice, there is no 
absolute good possible, a choice of the least evil is 
the only thing open for the wise man to make. The 
theorizer looks at the map, and goes from London 
to Oxford straight as the crow flies, the traveller 
who actually has to get there, drives to the railway- 
station, though the line does go round. But all will 
admit how much we should like to float through the 
air — if we could. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Self- reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
Yet not for power (power of herself 
Would come uncalled for), but to live by law, 
Acting the law we live by without fear ; 
And, because right is right, to follow right 
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. 

Tennyson". CEnone. 

The internal life amongst the boys themselves needs 
a few words, as far as it is affected by school laws, 
and takes its shape from them. Much certainly of 
what has been stated in the previous pages as neces- 
sary for a great school, bears on this closely, and all 
has a general influence ; but there are some special 
questions connected with it which require to be 
stated and understood. If a great school is of neces- 
sity a free and trusted commonwealth, it must equally 
of necessity have its own machinery for carrying on 



238 ED UCA TION [Chap. 

a free life ; there must be a recognized constitutional 
power amongst the boys able to guard their liberties, 
and prevent their being abused. First of all, then, 
there is something of value to lose. That is the 
starting-point. The internal order and discipline of 
every great school ought to revolve round the cen- 
tral principle of the perfect lawfulness of every out- 
door game, or amusement, calculated* to train the 
body and mind, and its corollary, that all unneces- 
sary restraint is removed. The greater the freedom, 
the more numerous the privileges a school enjoys, 
the more ground there is for expecting the boys to 
uphold their system ; the less temptation there is to 
break it, the greater power of punishment if it is 
broken. It ought not to pay to do wrong. The loss 
should be clearly greater than the gain. 

It is quite possible to make the outschool life so 
full of manly liberty, and to give such scope for all 
manly pursuits, and true amusement, as entirely to 
remove any real temptation to do evil, and make it 
a deliberate and mean choice taken at great risk. 
But, until this is done, and the school recognizes 
that its laws and its privileges are its happiness, and 
that to infringe them and betray them is false and 



XVI.] AND SCHOOL. 239 

treacherous, and, above all, childish folly, there can 
be no sound internal government. 

Every society can banish, if it chooses, any offence 
it thinks good to ban by the exercise of public 
opinion. A school ought to be made to ban treach- 
ery in its daily life. For instance, if the boys are 
allowed absolute freedom to walk where they please, 
on the implied contract that they do not go into 
pot-houses, the public opinion of the school can 
prevent this being done, or send any culprit to 
Coventry, as a convicted traitor, on detection. This, 
however, can only be if the boys amongst them- 
selves have an organized means of expressing their 
will, and of putting their will in force, a recognized 
authority which can act without calling in the power 
of masters. This is provided by the head-master 
investing the praepostors or upper boys with power, 
and by their acting as the ordinary guardians and 
administrators of internal law in the school. And 
if on any occasion they do not so act, or the school 
does not co-operate with them in so acting, then 
the head-master, on detecting treason, should punish 
the whole school by deprivation of privileges for a 
time, and thus make it the direct interest of every 



240 EDUCATION [Chap. 

boy to keep the society free from treason. In this 
manner the school learns to rule itself and manage 
its own internal life. The wonderful training this 
is to all parties concerned, and how admirably it 
fits them first to obey laws, and afterwards to be 
in responsible situations, will be evident at a glance. 
Under one name or another, and with varying 
powers, praepostors have existed from time imme- 
morial in the great schools. They are the school 
parliament, their constitutional channel of law, the 
one thing that makes a great school cease to be a 
despOLism, and gives freedom as far as freedom is 
possible. 

But care must be taken that, although elected 
from amongst the boys themselves, their authority 
should not become tyrannical. It requires to be 
strictly defined. As guardians of the school liber- 
ties, and bound to see that they are not treache- 
rously taken advantage of for evil, they should 
have power to try any case of school discipline, 
and to punish on conviction. But this power should 
be limited by compelling them in every case out 
of the commonest routine not to act singly, but 
in a body, to try the offender as a court ; and also. 



XVI.] AND SCHOOL. 241 

before beginning, to give him the choice of having 
the matter laid before the head-master, if he pre- 
fers it; their sentence, moreover, being subject to 
an appeal to him. Whilst the head-master on 
his part never acts as head-master in any case 
brought before him by them, but simply as their 
president in case of appeal, as their adviser and 
executive in case of their consulting him. Such 
a tribunal furnishes an intermediate power, able 
to deal with all internal matters, appealed to by 
high and low; and in many instances either pre- 
vents wrong altogether, or greatly mitigates the 
penalties which would have to be inflicted if the 
head-master dealt with the case officially. All the 
boys also have in this their own coercive power, for 
if a companion will not attend to a warning, they 
can appeal to their own officers to make him obey 
a school lav/, and not endanger the liberties of all 
for the falsehood of one. This is quite different from 
tale-bearing; it is a legal remedy. In society no 
one considers a person mean who brings a thief to 
justice, because society has its common bond which 
the good will not permit the bad to imperil. And 
if masters and boys are a society with their com- 

16 



242 EDUCATION [Chap. 

mon bond, and this can be the case, why should 
the thief be protected and the true man betrayed 
and sacrificed? Certainly if the masters are one 
body, and the boys another, and their interests 
distinct, by all means let the boys uphold each 
other in all things; but if the masters and every 
boy in the school who is not a low profligate, or 
on the way to be so, are on one side, why should 
the mean minority on the other weigh against the 
honour and good of all? Set up a standard of truth 
and liberty in the midst, let both masters and boys 
rally round it. " Honour amongst thieves" is but 
another name for dishonour. Leave the "thieves" 
to themselves, let the true men support one another. 
Self-government is the object a great school 
proposes to itself in its life and laws, and the prae- 
postors are the machinery for carrying out this 
self-government amongst the boys themselves. With- 
out them the masters are despots, and despotic 
laws must, as far as they can, do the work of 
sound internal popular government, self-worked, 
and within reach of all. True liberty is not im- 
possible in schools where there are no unnecessary 
restraints, where there is much to lose and little 



XVI.] AND SCHOOL. 243 

to gain by treachery. The praepostor-system in 
such a school is the recognized channel by which 
that sense of justice, honour, and appreciation of 
truth works, which many generations of "thieves' 
honour" have not, and cannot, entirely extinguish 
amongst the young. 

Another question has been bandied about in 
a curious way, and suffered much from friends and 
foes, the question of "fagging." 

Certainly, if fagging means the cruel necessity 
of the younger boys doing all manner of menial 
offices for the elder, because there are no ser- 
vants to do them, as there ought to be ; if 
it thus pervades the whole domestic life with 
labour, and too often with cruelty, no words are 
too strong to reprobate the practice. Boys are not 
sent to school to be made something between a 
housemaid and a shoeblack. 

Or again, if fagging enters into the school-games, 
and taints them with a sort of curse of slavery for 
the little boys, this is not much better. 

But if it means, as it should do, a just law, 
by which all power of compelling the weak to do 
work for the strong is utterly stopped, and such 

16—2 



244 E D U CATION [Chap, 

power as there is, is lodged in the hands of a com- 
paratively small number, whose character and in- 
tellects have gained them position in the school, 
and fitted them to wield it, then fagging is a great 
defence against oppression, instead of the contrary. 

The matter is generally debated as if the alter- 
native was fagging or no fagging. 

But this is not the true statement. By whatever 
name it may be called, there is not a family in 
the land without "fagging." Some one runs mes- 
sages and shuts doors, &c. And that some one, 
somehow, is not generally the eldest son or eldest 
daughter. 

If a number of boys are gathered together, the 
same thing holds good. Who, then, shall the " some 
one" be? that is the question. If there is no fag- 
ging (as some proudly boast), that is to say, no 
legal form of this, nothing can be simpler; there 
is no fagging, but — the strong compel the weak 
to serve. A little boy, however high in the school, 
cannot be safe from the tyranny of the most stupid 
and incompetent lout in it, if he is stronger. As 
a fact, every school has a certain number of big 
stupid boys, rather low in the school, their "dan^ 



XVL] AND SCHOOL. 245 

gerous class." "No fagging" means lodging much 
power in these clumsy hands, aggravated by the 
bitterness of its being illegal and unjust. Might 
is the law of such a society. But might is the 
law of savages. A school with no legal form of 
fagging is reduced to the level of a savage tribe, 
and no boy can consider himself safe as long as 
there is a stronger arm than his own in it. This 
is a pleasant state of things, and an excellent train- 
ing in habits of law, order, and justice, elevating 
brute force in the place which of all others should 
teach how contemptible strength is, unless wisely 
directed. But a legal system of fagging at once 
dethrones these clumsy tyrants, makes them ser- 
vants instead of masters, carefully guards against 
promiscuous shivery, and removes the bitterness of 
injustice from the exercise of such power as re- 
mains. In fact, it is the law of a civilized nation 
as contrasted with the "might makes right" of sav- 
ages. No fagging means no law. Decidedly there 
are many evils in human nature it would be nice 
to get rid of; perhaps this fact of a few of the 
higher boys being legally allowed to fag some of 
; the lower boys, though it also makes them their 



246 EDUCATION' [Chap. 

protectors, is one. But human nature is human 
nature, and any system which abolishes human 
nature, and is Paradise, will probably be a great 
success, at least so far as having a very successful 
serpent in it. The tenderest mother had much bet- 
ter wish for her son a few masters, and responsible, 
than that he should find a master in every one 
stronger than himself, and be trained by the law 
of the fist. Fagging, so far from being bullying, is 
a law that protects the weak from the strong by 
the only means than can effectually do so, namely, 
by destroying brute force, and reducing it to in- 
significance in the school government, and lodging 
a power, which must exist somewhere, in the hands 
of a few, and those the best qualified by position 
and intellect to wield it well. 

With respect to " bullying," whilst the thought- 
less cruelty and selfishness of some boys is very 
great, and single instances of oppression will, doubt- 
less, from time to time occur, a school that is con- 
ducted on a genial and kindly basis of treating all 
boys carefully and truly — a school that is one so- 
ciety, not two, will be as free from it as possible. 
Bad treatment breeds bad treatment. The oppressed 



XVI.] AND SCHOOL. 247 

almost invariably become oppressors * a hard, un- 
feeling government makes individuals hard and un- 
feeling to one another. 

Bullying can seldom be reached by direct pun- 
ishment, but every word that has had reference to 
a good school-system, has had reference also to put- 
ting down bullying. The only antidote and safe- 
guard lies in the goodness of the school and main 
school-life, acting on the minds and habits of the 
boys, and humanizing them. There must be bully- 
ing where there is neglect ; it is an inflammable 
gas generated in such localities. 

But, directly or indirectly, the question has al- 
ready been discussed ; so also has that of school- 
games. For it has been implied that the masters en- 
courage and support the school-games in every pos- 
sible way, a,nd make common cause with the boys 
in their amusements. When this is really the case 
their presence, instead of acting as a wet blanket, 
will have the directly contrary effect ; and if edu- 
cation is to take up its proper position, it will 
not be by making masters belong to a different 
creation from boys, but by their showing themselves 
thoroughly capable of understanding and advanc- 



248 EDUCATION L Chap * 

ing all manly pleasure, even if they do not share 
in. it personally. It is most refreshing to emerge 
from a slaughter-house of concords, moods, and 
tenses, strewed with murdered particles of language, 
into the open air ; most refreshing, instead of looking 
on boys as reservoirs of bad grammar and vexation, 
to escape to a thorough good game, and restore 
the balance of human nature by a hearty sense on 
both sides of both understanding a good drive or 
cut, of both admiring a stinging catch, which sends 
mutual respect tingling into the tips of the fingers. 
If the school- life is to be one, and school-honour 
depends on this, half the life, the out-door half, 
and in the boy-mind not the least important half, 
must not be left out of calculation. There must 
be thorough unity of purpose with masters and 
boys in every good thing. Remove this, there is 
no standing-ground on which to plant the lever 
that shall move the boy-world, or form the 
starting-point of the honour and truth of a great 
school. 

One thing, however, requires to be strictly 
guarded against. There must be no luxury in all 
this genial life, not the faintest approach to it. 



XVI.] AND SCHOOL. 249 

Everything, indeed, should be good, but of a hardy 
type. There is no doubt that the wintry harsh- 
ness of the old system, whilst it ruined many, did 
nevertheless brace up, or drive some few into very 
vigorous efforts. It was so cold, they were obliged 
to warm themselves somehow by some fierce exer- 
cise; so they took refuge in the excitement of hard 
reading, or hard something or other. This gains 
applause even when accompanied by hardness of 
a less delectable kind. 

The whole efforts of a school ought to be di- 
rected to making boys manly, earnest, and true, 
by everything around them, all they do, and all 
that is done to them, being of the best stamp. If 
this is done, everything else is but part of it. First 
make them true, make them men, by the work 
and life in and out of school, and be sure there 
will be no want of classmen. Do not, in artificially 
forcing a few classmen, lose sight of the more im- 
portant element that they should be men. That 
will be the best school, which when others claim 
as their distinctive characteristic the Class-ma,n, or 

the Gentle-man, or the man, has set itself 

steadily in all honour and truth to train Men, by 



250 EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. [Chap. XVI. 

making their work true and complete, their play 
true and complete, their lives true and complete, 
and out of this, true men. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Not, however, that we should go about, mating every man, and 
above all, every woman, Lis and her own doctor, by making them 
swallow a dose of science and physiology, falsely so called. There 
is much mischievous nonsense talked and acted on in this direction. 
The physiology to be taught in schools, and to our clients the public, 
should be the physiology of common sense, rather than that of dog- 
matic and minute science ; and should be of a kind, as it easily may 
be, which will deter from self -doctoring, while it guides in prevention 
and conduct; and will make them understand enough of the fearful 
and wonderful machinery of life, to awe and warn, as well as to 

enlighten. 

Horce Subsecivce, Preface, p. xiil. 

So far of schools. Yet a treatise on schools would 
be imperfect which did not say something about 
homes. It is a delicate and dangerous subject to 
touch on; but after all, the homes first make the 
schools, before the schools have a chance of making 
the homes. English education is what English homes 
choose it to be. Whatever the homes demand, in 
time they get. If their demand is good, they raise 
men to its level ; if bad, they drag them-, down to 
that. It is idle to suppose that the ordinary school- 
master, with every moment of his time occupied, full 



252 EDUCATION [Chap. 

of anxiety about the school, and with many real 
difficulties in making it work well, will waste his 
strength, and risk his success, by withstanding pres- 
sure from without ; or hesitate in taking the readiest 
way, that is not dishonest, to establish his reputation, 
or avoid a dangerous attack on it. The mere ex- 
haustion of hard work makes such a man inclined to 
give way, if only to escape the trouble of resisting. 

That this is no fictitious picture drawn from 
imagination, the following extract from an essay 
written by a schoolmaster, for the benefit of school- 
masters, and published as such, will somewhat prove. 
The writer says, " If a boy be obstinate, idle, or lazy, 
do not trouble yourself about him ; it is not worth 
your while ; as parents will seldom assist you, but 
will speak ill of you for punishing him ; while they 
are generally most to blame." So far the essay ; but 
if this advice is true with respect to intellectual 
matters, it is tenfold more so with respect to moral 
delinquencies. It is easy to abuse the Essayist for 
a low tone of morality, but that will not help the 
boys, nor alter the fact that this is sure to be the 
result of such a state of things as the writer de- 
scribes ; and, on common grounds, the result is very 



XVII.] AND SCHOOL. 253 

defensible. There is no reason why parents, who 
look upon the school- work as so much money's worth, 
should get more than they pay for, more than they 
want. If they object to a master's discipline, and 
distrust his professional skill, by what worldly prin- 
ciple is he bound to force his- goods on unwilling 
purchasers 1 Why run the risk of martyrdom as a 
Christian, for those who view him as a shopkeeper 
who does not understand his business ? It is per- ■ 
fectly true that in proportion as these views are 
acted on, schools are lowered ; but, if parents wish 
it, nothing can be said against it in the market-place, 
whatever may be the verdict on higher grounds. 
No one has any right to expect to buy martyrs. 
Hard-working and able professional men will not 
endure being treated as if their life-long study and 
experience was a fit subject for fragmentary discus- 
sion and offhand condemnation. They have neither 
time to fight, nor inclination ; it is a great tempta- 
tion to them to let things alone. Yery often it is 
not possible for a private person to be a fit judge cf 
school questions of discipline and government, they 
are very complicated, and have many bearings ; most 
men, if attacked on such points, will follow the 



254 EDUCATION [Chap. 

advice of the writer of the paragraph quoted above, 
and give his assailants what they ask for, though it 
is a bad article. 

But if this tendency is true in things which are 
absolutely in the power of schools to do, or not to 
do, how infinitely the evil is increased when strong 
self-interest, the desire for rest, and fear of strife are 
brought to bear on schools bound by old traditions, 
powerful and wealthy, in questions which cannot be 
thus summarily settled within the school itself. Their 
prestige and stereotyped glory hang like a stone 
round their necks as soon as they attempt to move. 
They are safe as long as they are quiet, but are hope- 
lessly fettered by the clinging love of generations. 
If the ivy is cut away, the pillars that support the 
wall are gone, for the parasite has become the pillar. 
Thus they have everything to lose, and little to gain 
by change. Ignorant and hostile Trustees, loving 
but exasperated partizans, prescriptive rights, divided 
opinions, unceasing work amidst it all, make school- 
reform no joke to any but those who write about it 
from an indignant leisure. The ablest and most 
zealous man alive might well pause before he set to 
work to put an old and time-honoured school into 



XVIL] AND SCHOOL. 255 

thorough order. Well might he calculate the chances, 
and doubt his power, for even if all his colleagues 
were agreed, and all the internal authorities were 
agreed, and the way to cany out reform was clear, 
still there would remain the absolute certainty to an 
experienced man, that the zealous support given to 
the old school as it is, means, reversing the shield, 
the most bitter animosity against effective change ; 
for change would break up dreams, and convert the 
sunny indifference of many into something more 
active and less pleasant. Though a fresh crown and 
kingdom may be gained in the contest, the old one 
is almost sure to be lost. Why run the risk ? This 
is the case, if the school is one of ancient glory. If 
the school is unknown, things are almost worse. 
There are far easier ways of passing life not dis- 
honourably, and gathering wealth, than making 
costly changes, which few understand, and aiming 
at an excellence which is rebelled against, and scoffed 
at, and even when attained, only half believed in ; 
while as long as doubt and difficulty exist, and his 
heart sinks within him, half faithless to his own 
belief, a reformer has no friends. 

If any fixed elementary principles were acknow- 



256 EDUCATION [Chap. 

ledged and recognised as necessary in every great 
school, and schools were classified according to the 
presence or absence of such requirements, work 
would be less hopeless. But if there is no such 
• general agreement, it is worth no one's while to be 
the first to try the ice. If it bears, well and good : 
but if not, the water is deep and cold, and the 
crowds on the bank are muttering " fool." Retrench- 
ment in education is the order of the day. But days 
of retrenchment are not days for dangerous experi- 
ments. 

However, this is certain, the schools of England 
will be good or bad, according to the wishes of the 
homes of England. There is no lack of working- 
men, if they are wanted; but how to work in the 
chaos of cries is no easy matter to decide. Let the 
homes look to it. If the work is great and respon- 
sible, endeavour to get the best men, and throw the 
responsibility on them of doing the work of their 
lives well. They have every thing at stake. Good 
work will scarcely be got out of the worker, if the 
principle followed is : " Chain him up tight, that he 
may do as little harm as possible." A system which 
has for its mainspring, "Provide against harm, no 



XVII.] AND SCHOOL. 257 

account need be taken of good," will do for dull 
mechanic workers, and dull mechanic work, but as 
long as this earth lasts, good work, and wearing 
work, and responsible work, will not be done by 
chained workers. Either do not trust great things 
to men, or else deal in a generous and free spirit 
with those to whom great things are entrusted. No 
punishment is too severe if they betray their trust, 
but no liberty of action is too great till they are 
proved unworthy. If children are precious, and 
human lives not to be bought and sold, and to edu- 
cate well requires all the knowledge of the trained 
intellect, all a good man's patience and a brave man's 
heart, believe and act on this belief. If not, let no 
one wonder that the servants are of the same spirit 
as their employers, and that proposals of reform are 
met, as of old, with the significant cry, "Great is 
Diana of the Ephesians" — a divinity whose worship 
will never be out of date. 



THE END. 



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